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BEFORE AND AFTER THE TREATY OF
WASHINGTON : THE AMERICAN
CIVIL WAR AND THE WAR
IN THE TRANSVAAL
A: A i J
• Kl.l\ KKKI' HKKORE T U K
NEW
iiiSTORlCAL SOCIETY
L9, 1901
CRARLES FR/vNCIS ADAMS, LL.D,
Presuit nt i>f the Massachusetts Historical Society.
NEW YORK:
PRINTED FOR THE SOCIKTV
190-'.
BEFORE AND AFTER THE TREATY OF
WASHINGTON : THE AMERICAN
CIVIL WAR AND TffE WAR
IN THE TRANSVAAL'-
AN ADDRESS
DELIVERED BEFORE THE
NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY
ON ITS
NINETY-SEVENTH ANNIVERSARY,
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1901,
BY
CHARLES FRANCIS ADAMS, LL.D.
President of the Massachusetts Historical Society.
NEW YORK:
PRINTED FOR THE SOCIETY
1902.
U. T ' /
OFFICERS OF THE SOCIETY, 1901
PRESIDENT,
THE VERY REV. EUGENE A. HOFFMAN,
D.D. (OXON.), LL.D. , D. C. L.
FIRST VICE-PRESIDENT,
J. P1ERPONT MORGAN.
SECOND VICE-PRESIDENT,
JOHN S. KENNEDY.
FOREIGN CORRESPONDING SECRETARY,
NICHOLAS FISH.
DOMESTIC CORRESPONDING SECRETARY,
FREDERIC WENDELL JACKSON.
RECORDING SECRETARY,
SYDNEY H. CARNEY, JR., M.D.
TREASURER,
CHARLES A. SHERMAN.
LIBRARIAN,
ROBERT H. KELBY.
9621 52
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.
FIRST CLASS — FOR ONE YEAR, ENDING 1902.
F. ROBERT SCHELL, DANIEL PARISH, JR.,
FREDERIC WENDELL JACKSON.
SECOND CLASS FOR TWO YEARS, ENDING 1903.
NICHOLAS FISH, ISAAC J. GREENWOOD,
CHARLES FREDERICK HOFFMAN, JR. '
THIRD CLASS — FOR THREE YEARS, ENDING 1904.
JOHN S. KENNEDY, GEORGE W. VANDERBILT,
CHARLES ISHAM.
FOURTH CLASS FOR FOUR YEARS, ENDING 1905.
J. PIERPONT MORGAN, JOHN J. TUCKER.
JOHN J. TUCKER, Chairman,
DANIEL PARISH, JR., Secretary.
[The President, Recording Secretary, Treasurer, and Librarian
are members, ex-officio, of the Executive Committee.]
AT a meeting of the NEW YORK HISTORICAL SOCIETY,
held in its Hall on Tuesday evening, November iQth,
1901, to celebrate the Ninety-seventh Anniversary of the
founding of the Society, Charles Francis Adams, LL.D.,
President of the Massachusetts Historical Society, de
livered the address, entitled : " Before and After the Treaty
of Washington: The American Civil War and the War in
the Transvaal."
Upon its conclusion Mr. A. V. W. Van Vechten sub
mitted, with remarks, the following resolution :
Resolved, That the thanks of the Society be presented
to Mr. Adams for his instructive and interesting address
before the Society this evening, and that a copy be re
quested for publication.
The resolution was seconded by Mr. William P. Prentice.
The resolution was then adopted unanimously.
Extract from the minutes,
SYDNEY H. CARNEY, JR.,
Recording Secretary.
BEFORE AND AFTER THE., TREATY
OF WASHINGTON: THE /"-AMERICAN
CIVIL WAR AND THE
TRANSVAAL.
NEGOTIATED during the spring of 1871, and
signed on the 8th of May of that year, the Treaty of
Washington not only put to rest questions of differ
ence of long standing, big with danger, between
the two leading maritime nations of the world, but
it incorporated new principles of the first importance
into the body of established International Law.
The degree, moreover, to which that treaty has in
fluenced, and is now influencing, the course of hu
man affairs and historical evolution in both hemi
spheres is, I think, little appreciated. To that
subject I propose this evening to address myself.
The time to make use of unpublished material
bearing on this period — material not found in news
papers, public archives or memoirs which have
already seen the light — has, moreover, come. So
far as any considerable political or diplomatic result
can be said to be the work of one man, the Treaty
of Washington was the work of Hamilton Fish.
Mr. Fish died in September, 1893 — now over eight
years ago. When the treaty was negotiated Gen
eral Grant was President ; and General Grant has
been dead more than sixteen years. In speaking
8 Before and After the Treaty of Washington:
of this treaty, and describing the complications
which led up to it and to which it incidentally
gave rise, frequent reference must be made to
Charles Sumner and John Lothrop Motley ; and,
while Mr. Sumner died nearly twenty-eight years
££t?, Mr.; Motley followed him by a little more
than three years only. Thus between the iith of
:Mkrclv i$?4* A*?d jthe 7th of September, 1893, all
those I have named — prominent actors in the
drama I am to describe— passed from the stage.
They belonged to a generation that is gone. Other
public characters have since come forward ; new
issues have presented themselves. The once fa
mous Alabama claims are now "ancient history,"
and the average man of to-day hardly knows what
is referred to when allusion is made to " Conse
quential Damages " or " National Injuries " in con
nection therewith ; indeed, why should he, for
when, in May, 1872, that issue was finally put to
rest, he who is now (1901) President of the United
States was a boy in his fourteenth year. None the
less, as the Treaty of Washington was a very mem
orable historical event, so President Grant, Secre
tary Fish, Senator Sumner and Minister Motley
are great historic figures. Their achievements and
dissensions have already been much discussed, and
will be more discussed hereafter ; and to that dis
cussion I propose now to contribute something.
My theme ^includes the closing scene of a great
drama ; a scene in the development of which the
striking play of individual character will long retain
an interest.
History aside, moreover, the Treaty of Washing
ton itself is a living, and it may even be said a con-
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 9
trolling factor in the international situation of to
day :
11 And enterprises of great pith and moment
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action."
That treaty was signed on the 8th of May, 1871 ;
the battle of Majuba Hill took place nine years from
the following 27th of February. The two events
occurred on different sides of the equator and of the
Atlantic ocean ; they apparently had as little bear
ing on each other as it was possible for two inci
dents to have ; and yet the logical outcome of the
latter event was included and forestalled in the set
tlement effected through the earlier.
I
Between 1861 and 1865 the United States was
engaged in a struggle which called for the exertion
of all the force at its command ; as, to a lesser ex
tent, Great Britain is now. The similarity between
the war in South Africa and the Confederate War
in this country early attracted the attention of
English writers, and one of the most thoughtful of
their civil and military critics has put on record a
detailed comparison of the two.* " Each of these
conflicts," this authority asserts, " had its origin in
conditions of long and gradual growth, rendering
an ultimate explosion inevitable. Each of them
deeply affected the whole existence of the com
munities which found themselves in antagonism.
o
In each case, therefore, the energy and the duration
of the fighting far exceeded the expectations of
* Spenser Wilkinson, War and Policy (1891), pp. 419-36.
io Before and After the Treaty of Washington:
most of those who might have seemed to be in a
position to judge." To the same effect, another
author* refers to the " striking 'resemblance " be
tween the two struggles. " The analogy," he says,
"like any other historical analogy, must not be
pressed too far, but there is a remarkable parallel
ism in the general character of the political issues, in
the course of negotiations preceding war, and in the
actual conduct of the campaigns, a parallelism which
sometimes comes out in the most insignificant de
tails." This analogy the writer might advanta
geously have carried into his discussion of the effect
of both wars on foreign opinion at the time of each.
He correctly enough admits that, during the strug
gle in South Africa — " The whole of Europe almost
was against us, not so much from any consideration
of the merits of the case, as from the dislike and jeal
ousy of England which have developed so enor
mously in the last decade " ; but he significantly adds
— " In the United States sympathies were much di
vided." In fact, during our Civil War the entire
sympathies and hearty good-will of the great body of
those composing what are known as the governing
and influential classes throughout Europe west of
the Vistula, were enlisted on the side of the Con
federacy. In these classes would be included all
those of rank, members of the learned professions,
the commercial, financial and banking circles, and
officers of the two services, the Army and the Navy.
And, then also as in the case of the South African
war, this instructive accord arose, not " from any
consideration of the merits of the case," but from
"dislike and jealousy"; — the dislike and jealousy
* The Times's History of the War in South Africa.
American Civil War and War in tJie Transvaal. 1 1
of American democracy, which "had developed so
enormously in the course " of the decade or two im
mediately preceding the outbreak of 1861. Espe
cially was this true of England ; there "sympathies
were much divided," but the line of cleavage was
horizontal, not perpendicular. The poor, the lowly
and the conscientious instinctively sympathized with
the Union and the North ; while of the privileged
and the moneyed, the commercial and manufactur
ing classes, it may safely be asserted that nine out
of ten were heart and soul on the side of the rebel
and slaveholder. It is only necessary for me fur
ther to premise that as respects foreign govern
ments, and the principles of international law and
amity relating to the concession of belligerent rights,
—the recognition of nationality, neutrality, and par
ticipation of neutrals, direct and indirect, in the oper
ations of war, — the position of the Confederacy and
of the two South African republics were in essen
tials the same. The latter, it is true, were not mari
time countries, so that no questions of blockade,
and comparatively few of contraband, arose; but,
on the other hand, while the Confederates were, as
respects foreign nations, insurgents pure and sim
ple, the South African republics had governments
de jure as well as de facto. Great Britain claimed
over them a species of suzerainty only, undefined
at best, and plainly questionable by any power dis
inclined to recognize it. This the British authori
ties * deplore, and try to explain away ; but the
fact is not denied.
So far, therefore, as the status of those in arms
against a government claiming sovereignty is of
* The Times's History, vol. i., chap. 4.
12 Before and After tJie Treaty of Washington:
moment, the position of the South African republics
was, in 1900, far stronger with all nations on terms
of amity with Great Britain than was the position
of the Confederacy in 1861-62 with nations then at
amity with the United States. It consequently
followed that any precedent created, or rule laid
down, by a neutral for its own guidance in inter
national relations during the first struggle was ap
plicable in the second, except in so far as such rule
or precedent had been modified or set aside by
mutual agreement of the parties concerned during
the intervening years. What then were these
rules and precedents established by Great Britain
in its dealings with the United States in 1861-5,
which, unless altered by mutual consent during the
intervening time, would have been applicable by
the United States to Great Britain in 1899-1901 ?
In the opening pages of his account of the do
ings of the agents of the Confederacy in Europe
during our Civil war, Captain James A. Bulloch,
of the Confederate States Navy, the most trusted
and efficient of those agents, says that " the Con
federate government made great efforts to organize
a naval force abroad " ; and he adds, truly enough,
" that the naval operations of the Confederate
States which were [thus] organized abroad, pos
sess an importance and attraction greater than
their relative effect upon the issue of the struggle."
Captain Bulloch might well have gone further. He
might have added that, in connection with those
operations, the public men, high officials, courts of
law and colonial authorities of Great Britain more
especially, supported by the press and general
public opinion of that country, labored conjointly
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 13
and strenuously, blindly and successfully, to build
up a structure of rules and precedents, not less
complete and solid than well calculated, whenever
the turn of Great Britain might come, — as come in
time it surely would, — to work the downfall of the
Empire. As that record carries in it a lesson of
deep significance to all entrusted with the tempo
rary administration of national affairs, it should
neither be forgotten nor ignored. It is well that
statesmen, also, should occasionally be reminded
that, with nations as with individuals, there is a
to-morrow, and the whirligig of time ever brings on
its revenges. "All things come to him who waits" ;
and the motto of the House of Ravenswood was —
" I bide my time."
When hostilities broke out in April, 1861, the
so-called Confederate States of America did not
have within their own limits any of the essentials
to a maritime warfare. With a long coast line and
numerous harbors, in itself and by itself, so far as
aggressive action was concerned, it could not be,
or be made, a base of naval operations. It had no
machine-shops nor yards ; no ship-wrights, and no
collection of material for ship-building or the equip
ment of ships. In the days when rebellion was
as yet only incipient, it was correctly deemed of
prime importance to get cruisers ; but a diligent
search throughout the ports of the Confederacy
disclosed but one small steamer at all adapted for
a cruising service. Under these circumstances the
minds of those composing the as yet embryotic
government at Montgomery turned naturally to
Europe; and, in the early days of May, 1861, im
mediately after the reduction of Fort Sumter, a
14 Before and After the Treaty of Washington:
scheme was matured for making Great Britain the
base of Confederate naval operations against the
United States. The nature and £cope of the Brit
ish statutes had been looked into ; the probability
of the early issuance of a proclamation of neutral
ity by the government of Great Britain was con
sidered, and the officials of the Confederate Naval
Department were already confident that the Mont
gomery government would be recognized by Eu
ropean powers as a de facto organization. To it,
as such, belligerent rights would be conceded ; and,
in such case, the maritime shelter and privileges
common to belligerents under the amity of nations,
would be granted to its regularly commissioned
cruisers.
The officers in question next looked about for
some competent Confederate sympathizer, who
might be despatched to Europe and there be a
species of Secretary in parti bus. They decided
upon James A. Bulloch, at the time a lieutenant in
the United States Navy detailed by the Govern
ment for the command of the Bienville, a privately
owned mail steamer running between New York
and New Orleans. A Georgian by birth and ap
pointment, Lieutenant Bulloch went with his State,
and at once after Georgia seceded put himself at
the disposal of the Confederate government. He
was requested forthwith to report at Montgomery ;
and there, on the 8th and Qth of May he received
from S. K. Mallory, the Confederate Naval Secre
tary, verbal instructions covering all essential points
of procedure. On the night of the pth of May,
Bulloch left Montgomery for Liverpool, his duly
designated seat of operations. Arriving there on
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 15
the 4th of June, Secretary Mallory's assistant at
once entered on his duties, not only purchasing
naval supplies, but, before the close of the month
he had contracted with a Liverpool ship-builder for
the construction of a cruiser, and it was already
partly in frame. The Queen's proclamation of
neutrality had then been issued some six weeks.
The vessel now on the stocks was at first called
the Oreto ; afterwards it attained an international
celebrity as the Florida. Acting with an energy
which quite justified his selection for the work of
the Confederacy then in hand to be done, Captain
Bulloch on the first of the following August entered
into another contract, this time with the Messrs.
Laird, under which the keel of a second cruiser
was immediately afterwards laid in the yards of
that firm at Birkenhead. The purpose of the Con
federate government was well defined. It was not
merely to buy or build single vessels of war in
British ports and dockyards, but it was proposed
to maintain in Liverpool a permanent representa
tive of its Navy Department, — a species of branch
office, or bureau, with a deputy secretary at its
head, — and, through him, using the ports of the
Mersey, the Clyde and the Thames as arsenals, to
construct ships, and secure naval supplies, so long
as the war might last. No real hindrance was
anticipated. In other words, Great Britain was to
be made the base of an organized maritime war
fare against the United States, the Confederacy
itself being confessedly unable to conduct such a
warfare from within its own limits. The single
question was — Would Great Britain permit itself
to be thus used as a naval base and arsenal for the
1 6 Before and After the Treaty of Washington:
construction, equipment and despatch of commerce-
destroyers and battle ships intended to be used
against a nation with which it was at peace ?
Excepting only the good faith, friendly purpose
and apparently obvious self-interest of a civilized
government in the last half of the nineteenth cen
tury, the provisions of the British Foreign Enlist
ment Act of 1819 constituted the only barrier in
the way of the consummation of this extraordinary
project, — a project which all will now agree was
tantamount to a proposal that, so far as commerce-
destroyers were concerned, the first maritime na
tion of the world should become an accomplice in
piracy before the fact. As the date of its enact
ment (1819) implies, the British Foreign Enlist
ment Act was passed at the time of the troubles
incident to the separation of its American depend
encies from Spain, and was designed to prevent
the fitting out in British ports of piratical expedi
tions against Spanish commerce, under cover of
letters-of-marque, &c., issued by South American
insurrectionary governments. Owing to the long
peace which ensued on its passage, the Act had
slept innocuously on the statute book, no case in
volving a forfeiture ever having been brought to
trial under it. It was an instance of desuetude,
covering more than forty years.
A clumsy, cumbersome statute, the Foreign En
listment Act was, after the manner of English Acts
of Parliament, overloaded with a mass of phrases,
alike imprecise and confused, with so much of tedi
ous superfluity of immaterial circumstance " as to
suggest a suspicion that it must have been " spe
cially designed to give scope to bar chicanery, to
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 17
facilitate the escape of offenders, and to embarrass
and confound the officers of the government charged
with the administration of law. It was, in short,
one of those statutes in which the British Parlia
mentary draughtsman has prescriptively revelled,
and through the clauses of which judge and barris
ter love, as the phrase goes, to drive a coach-and-
six. But it so chanced that, in the present case,
the coach-and-six had, as passengers, the whole
British ministry, and, in it, they were doomed to
flounder pitifully along " in the flat morass of [a]
meaningless verbosity and confused circumlocu
tion." * Upon the proper construction of this not
able act, the Confederate representatives at once
sought the opinion of counsel ; and they were pres
ently advised that, under its provisions, it would be
an offense for a British subject to build, arm and
equip a vessel to cruise against the commerce of a
friendly state ; but the mere building of a ship,
though with the full intent of so using her, was no
offense ; nor was it an offense to equip a vessel so
built, if it was without the intent so to use her.
To constitute an offense the two acts of building a
ship with intent of hostile use, and equipping the
same must be combined ; and the things must be
done in British waters. It hence followed that,
under the Act, it was lawful for an English firm to
build a ship in a British ship-yard designed pur
posely to prey on American commerce ; it was also
lawful to sell or buy the articles of necessary equip
ment for such vessel, from cordage to arms and
ammunition ; but the articles of equipment must
not go into the vessel, thus making of her a com-
* Geneva Arbitration ; Argument of the United States, p. 61.
1 8 Before and After the Treaty of Washington:
plete cruiser, within British maritime jurisdiction.
The final act of conjunction must be effected at
some distance greater than on» league from where
a British writ ran. Assuming this construction of
the Foreign Enlistment Act to be correct, its eva
sion was simple. It could be enforced practically
only with a government strong enough to decline
to allow its international obligations to be trifled
with. If, however, those in office evinced the
slightest indifference respecting the enforcement of
international obligations, and much more if the
government was infected by any spirit of conni
vance, the act at once became a statute mockery.
In any large view of policy Great Britain then
was, as it now is, under strong inducement to insist
on the highest standard of international maritime
observance. As the foremost ocean-carrier of the
world, it ill became her to connive at commerce
destroying. But, in 1861, Great Britain had a
divided interest ; and British money-making in
stincts are well-developed. She was the arsenal
and ship-builder of the world, as well as its ocean-
carrier. Her artizans could launch from private
dock-yards vessels of any size, designed for any
purpose, thoroughly equipped whether for peace or
war; and all at the shortest possible notice. Un
der ordinary circumstances, this was a legitimate
branch of industry. It admitted, however, of easy
perversion ; and the question in 1861 was whether
the first of commercial nations would permit its
laws to be so construed as to establish the princi
ple that, in case of war, any neutral might convert
its ports into nurseries of corsairs for the use or in
jury of either belligerent, or of both. This was the
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 19
exact use the Confederacy in 1861 deliberately
designed to make of Great Britain. As its author
ized agent and representative twenty years later
expressed it, — " The object of the Confederate
Government was not merely to buy or build a sin
gle ship, but it was to maintain a permanent repre
sentative of the Navy Department [in Great Brit
ain] and to get ships and naval supplies without
hindrance as long as the war lasted."*
It is now necessary briefly to recall a once famil
iar record showing the extent to which Great Brit
ain lent itself to this scheme, and the precedents it
created while so doing. All through the later sum
mer of 1 86 1 — the months following the disgrace of
Bull Run and the incident of the Trent, — the work
of Confederate naval construction was pushed vig
orously along in the Liverpool and Birkenhead
ship-yards. Hardly any concealment was attempted
of the purpose for which the Oreto and the " 290,"
—as the two vessels were called or designated,—
was designed. As the work on them progressed,
it was openly supervised by agents known to be in
the Confederate employ, while British government
officials, having free access to the yards, looked to
it that the empty letter of the law was observed.
Never was a solemn mockery more carefully en
acted ; never was there a more insulting pretence at
the observance of international obligations ; never
a more perfect instance of connivance at a contem
plated crime, though not so nominated in the bond.
The Florida, we are told by Captain Bulloch,
was the first regularly built war vessel of the Con-
* Bulloch, The Secret Service of the Confederate States in Europe,
vol. i, p. 65 ; vol. ii, p. 216.
2O Before and After the Treaty of Washington :
federate States Navy. " She has," he wrote at the
time, "been twice inspected by^the Custom House
authorities, in compliance with specific orders from
the Foreign Office. * * * The hammock-net
tings, ports, and general appearance of the ship suf
ficiently indicate the ultimate object of her construc
tion, but * * * registered as an English ship,
in the name of an Englishman, commanded by an
Englishman, with a regular official number under
the direction of the Board of Trade, she seems to
be perfectly secure against capture or interference,
until an attempt is made to arm her." Another ves
sel, carrying the armament of this contemplated
commerce-destroyer, left England at so nearly the
same time as the Oreto that those in charge of the
latter vessel increased her speed, being apprehen
sive that their consort would arrive at the point of
rendezvous first. Making Nassau, an English port,
the last pretence at concealment as to character
and destination disappeared, in consequence of the
heedless talk of a Confederate officer there to join
her ; a portion of her crew, also, immediately re
ported to the British naval commander at the sta
tion that the vessel's destination could not be as
certained. She was seized ; but, after some legal
forms and a pretence of a hearing, a decree of res
toration was entered. Subsequently, before being
herself destroyed, she captured, and burnt or bond
ed, some seventy vessels carrying the United States
flag. A precedent complete at every point had been
created.
Relying on the advice of counsel and the ex
perience gained in the case of the Florida, there
was absolutely no concealment of purpose even at-
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 21
tempted as respects the Alabama. Built under a
contract entered into with the avowed agent of the
Confederacy, that the " 290 " was designed as a
Confederate commerce-destroyer was town talk in
Liverpool, — ''quite notorious," as the American
consul expressed it. She was launched on the 15th
of May, 1862, as the Enrico, "with no attempt," as
Captain Bulloch testifies, " to deceive any one by
any pretence whatever." Everything was done in
the "ordinary commonplace way," and "no mys
tery or disguise " was deemed necessary.* The
Lairds knew that they were building a cruiser for
the Confederate government, specially constructed
as a commerce-destroyer ; and they carefully ob
served what their counsel advised them was the law
of the land. They simply built a vessel designed to
do certain work in a war then in progress ; the
equipment of that vessel, including its armament,
was in course of preparation elsewhere. Of that
they knew nothing. They were not informed ; nor,
naturally, did they care to ask. The vessel and her
equipment would come together outside of British
jurisdiction. Such was the law ; Great Britain lived
under a government of law; and "to strain the
law " the government was in no way inclined. The
agents of the Confederacy, moreover, " had the
means of knowing with well-nigh absolute certainty
what was the state of the negotiations between the
United States minister and Her Majesty's govern
ment." f The work of completion was, however,
pressed forward with significant energy after the
launching of the vessel ; so that, by the middle of
June, she went out on a trial trip. An Englishman,
* Bulloch, vol. ii, p. 229. \Ibid., vol. i, pp. 229, 260-1.
22 Before and After the Treaty of Washington:
having a Board of Trade certificate, was then en
gaged " merely to take the ship to an appointed
place without the United Kingdom," where she was
to meet a consort bearing her armament.
That armament was in course of preparation else
where in Great Britain, and included "everything
required for the complete equipment of a man-of-
war." The goods, when ready, were " packed,
marked, and held for shipping orders." The Agrip-
pina, a suitable barque of 400 tons measurement,
was then purchased, and quietly loaded at the Lon
don docks. Between the two vessels — the one
building on the Mersey, the other taking on board
a cargo in the Thames — there was no apparent con
nection. Every arrangement for the destruction of
the commerce of a nation at peace with Great Brit
ain was being made under the eyes of the customs
officials, but with scrupulous regard to the provisions
of the Foreign Enlistment Act.
A single word from the British Foreign Office
would then have sufficed to put a stop to the whole
scheme. That office was fully advised by the Amer
ican minister of what was common town-talk at Liv
erpool. The Confederate agent there in charge of
operations was as well known as the Collector of
the Port, Had those then officially responsible for
Great Britain's honor and interests been in earnest,
public notice would have been given to all con
cerned, including belligerents, — under the designa
tion of evil-disposed persons, — that Her Majesty's
government did not propose to have Great Britain's
neutrality trifled with or the laws evaded. Her
ports were not to be made, by either belligerent,
directly or through evasion, a basis of naval opera-
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 23
tions against the other. Any ship constructed for
warlike purposes, upon the builders of which notice
had been served at the application of either bellig
erent, would be held affected by such notice ; and
thereafter, in case of evasion, would not be entitled
to the rights of hospitality in any British waters.
Whether, under the principles of international law,
such vessel could be held so tainted by evasion
after notice as to be subject to seizure and detention
whenever and wherever found within British juris
diction, would be matter of further consideration.
This course was one authorized by international law,
and well understood at the time. The Attorney
General, for instance, in debate declared — " I have
not the least doubt that we have a right, if we
thought fit, to exclude from our own ports any par
ticular ship or class of ships, if we consider that they
have violated our neutrality." And, three months
before the first law adviser of the Crown thus ex
pressed himself, Sir Vernon Harcourt had said in a
letter published in the Times — "I think that to
deny to the Florida and to the Alabama access to
our ports would be the legitimate and dignified man
ner of expressing our disapproval of the fraud which
has been practiced on our neutrality. If we abstain
from taking such a course, I fear we may justly lie
under the imputation of having done less to vindi
cate our good faith than the American government
consented at our instance, upon former occasions, to
do." Finally, England's Chief Justice laid do\vn
the rule in the following broad terms, — "A sover
eign has absolute dominion in and over his own
ports and waters. He can permit the entrance into
them to the ships of other nations, or refuse it ; he
24 Before and After the Treaty of Washington :
can grant it to some, can deny it to others ; he can
subject it to such restrictions, conditions, or regula
tions as he pleases. But, by the universal comity
of nations, in the absence of such restrictions of pro
hibition, the ports and waters of every nation are
open to all comers."
Unless, therefore, the British ministry was will
ing to stand forward as openly conniving at pro
ceedings calculated to bring into contempt the law
and the Queen's proclamation, the course to be
pursued was plain ; and the mere declaration of a
purpose to pursue that course, while it would in no
way have interfered with legitimate ship construc
tion, would have put an immediate stop to the
building and equipment of commerce-destroyers.
The law, even as it then stood, was sufficient, had
the goverment only declared a purpose. Had the
will been there, a way had not been far to seek.
No such notice was conveyed. In vain the
American minister protested. No evidence as to the
character of the proposed cruiser, or the purpose
for which she was designed, possible for him to
adduce, was adjudged satisfactory ; and, finally,
when the case became so flagrant that action could
not in decency be delayed, t a timely intimation
* Papers Relating to the Treaty of Washington (Ed. 1872), vol. iv,
pp. 416, 418.
t Much has been written, and more said, as to the particular per
son upon whom rested responsibility for the evasion of the Alabama.
Collusion on the part of officers has been charged, and it was at one
time even alleged that Mr. S. Price Edwards, then collector of the
port of Liverpool, had been the recipient of a bribe. This is em
phatically denied by Captain Bulloch (vol. i, pp. 258-64) and no
evidence has ever come to light upon which to rest such an improb
able imputation. Under these circumstances the following intensely
characteristic avowal of Earl Russell, in his volume of Recollcc-
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 25
reached the Confederate agent through some un
known channel, and, on the 28th of July, 1862, the
Alabama went out on a trial trip at the mouth of
the Mersey, from which she did not return. With
British papers, and flying the British flag, she three
days later got under weigh for the Azores. At al
most the same hour, moving under orders from the
Confederate European Naval Bureau at Liverpool,
her consort, the Agrippina, loaded with munitions
and equipment, cleared from London. The two
met at the place designated ; and there, outside of
British jurisdiction, the stores, arms and equip
ment were duly transferred. A few days later, the
forms of transfer having been gone through with, the
British master turned the ship over to the Confed
erate commander, his commission was read and
the Confederate flag run up. After which some
what empty ceremonies, the " 290," now the Ala
bama, stood purified of any evasion of English law,
and, as a duly commissioned foreign man-of-war,
was thereafter entitled to all belligerent rights and
hospitalities within British jurisdiction. Incredible
as it now must seem to Englishmen as well as to
us, a British ministry, of which Lord Palmerston
was the head, then professed itself impotent to vin
dicate its authority or to assert the majesty, or even
tions and Suggestions, published in 1875, has a refreshing sound.
Such curt frankness causes a feeling of respect for the individual
man to predominate over any, or all, other sentiments. The pas
sage referred to (p. 407) is as follows : — " I assent entirely to the opin
ions of the Lord Chief Justice of England [in his award in the Ge
neva Arbitration] that the ' Alabama ' ought to have been detained
during the four days in which I was waiting for the opinion of the
Law Officers. But I think that the fault was not that of the Com
missioners of the Customs [as asserted by Lord Cockburn] ; it was
my fault, as Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs."
26 Before and After the Treaty of Washington :
the dignity, of the law. It had been made the dupe
of what Lord Cockbtira not inaptly termed " con
trivances," — " the artifices and" tricks, to which the
unscrupulous cunning of the Confederate agents did
not hesitate to resort in violation of British neutral
ity " * — and yet the poor victim of these " artifices
and tricks" professed itself utterly unable to make
itself respected, much less to vindicate its authority.
At a later day Earl Russell recovered the use of his
faculties and his command of language. He then,
though the law had not in the mean time been
changed, found means to let the Confederate
agents understand that " such shifts and stratagems"
were " totally unjustifiable and manifestly offensive
to the British Crown."
Such are the simple facts in the case. And now,
looking back through the perspective of forty years
and speaking with all moderation, is it unfair to ask
—Was any great nation ever guilty of a more wan
ton, a more obtuse, or a more criminal dereliction ?
The world's great ocean-carrier permitted a bel
ligerent of its own creation to sail a commerce-de
stroyer through its statutes ; and then, because of
an empty transfer, set up a brazen pretence that in
affording protection and hospitality to the vessel
thus existing through an evasion of its own law,
Great Britain did not stand an accomplice in piracy.
" Shall the blessed sdn of heaven prove a micher
and eat black-berries ? — a question not to be asked.
Shall the son of England prove a thief, and take
purses ? — a question to be asked."
It is not necessary further to follow the law of
* Papers Relating to the Treaty of Washington (Ed. 1872), vol. iv,
P- 377-
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 27
Great Britain as then laid down, or to enumerate
the precedents created under it. One thing led to
another. In the Autumn of 1861 Captain Bulloch
ran the blockade, and, visiting" Richmond, con
ferred with his chief, the Secretary of the Confed
erate Navy. He then learned that the designs of
the Richmond government as respects naval oper
ations from a British base had " assumed a broader
range." * Secretary Mallory now contemplated the
construction in Great Britain of "the best type of
armored vessels for operations on the coast *
to open and protect the blockaded ports. ' * * It
was impossible to build them in the Confederate
States — neither the materials nor the machines
were there ; and besides, even if iron and skilled
artizans had been within reach, there was not a
mill in the country to roll the plates, nor furnaces
and machinery to forge them, nor shops to make
the engines." f This was a distinct step in advance.
Earl Russell had declared that one great object of
the British government was to preserve " for the
nation the legitimate and lucrative trade of ship
building " ; and if it was " legitimate " to construct
a single commerce-destroyer to take part in hos
tilities then going on, why was it not legitimate to
construct a squadron of turreted iron-clads ? It
certainly was more " lucrative." In the words of
Mr. Gladstone, then Chancellor of the Exchequer,
the Confederate leaders, having made an army,
" are making, it appears, a navy " ; and the "lucra
tive trade " of constructing that navy naturally fell
to the ship-wrights of the Mersey. The Prime
Minister of Great Britain now, also, boldly took
* Bulloch, vol. i, p. 277. f Ibid., p. 380.
28 Before and After the Treaty of Washington:
the ground in Parliamentary debate — speaking, of
course, for the Government — that of this no bel
ligerent had any cause to ccfmplain. " As a mer
cantile transaction " British merchants and manu
facturers were at liberty to supply, and had a right
to supply, one or both of " the belligerents, not
only with arms and cannon, but also with ships
destined for warlike purposes." To the same ef
fect the Secretary for Foreign Affairs informed the
United States minister that, except on the ground
of any proved violation of the Foreign Enlistment
Act * * Her Majesty's Government cannot
interfere with commercial dealings between British
subjects and the so - styled Confederate States,
whether the object of those dealings be money, or
contraband goods, or even ships adapted for war
like purposes." "The cabinet," he moreover on
another occasion stated, " were of opinion that the
law [thus set forth] was sufficient, but that legal
evidence could not always be procured/' Of the
sufficiency of that evidence, the government, acting
through its legal advisers, was the sole judge. As
such, it demanded legal proof of a character suf
ficient not only to justify an indictment, but to fur
nish reasonable grounds for securing a conviction
thereon. The imputation and strong circumstances
which lead directly to the door of proof, gave, in
this case, no satisfaction. Facts of unquestioned
notoriety could not be adduced. Notoriety was
not evidence.* A petty jury in an English criminal
court became thus the final arbiter of Britain's in
ternational obligations. If that august tribunal
* Papers Relating to the Treaty of Washington, vol. iv, pp. 377,
479-
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 29
pronounced a case not proven, though the real
facts were common town talk, the law was not
violated, and, whatever acts of maritime wrong and
ocean outrage followed, foreign nations had no
grounds for reclamation. And this was gravely
pronounced law; "Ay, marry; crowner's quest
law ! "
Here, indeed, was the inherent, fundamental de
fect of the British position, — what afterwards came
to being described as the " insularity " of the
British contentions. One and all, — politicians,
publicists, jurists, statesmen, — they seemed unable
to rise above the conception of a municipal rule of
conduct. Their vision was bounded, on the one
side by a jury box, and on the other by the benches
of the House of Commons. The international ob
ligations of Great Britain, Earl Russell did not
cease to contend, were coterminous with the mu
nicipal laws of Great Britain ; and if those laws
did not provide adequate protection for the rights
and properties of foreign nations it was most un
reasonable for the representatives of those nations
to present claims and complaints to Her Majesty's
government. Great Britain was only accountable
in so far as her own laws made her accountable.
It is almost unnecessary to say that this rule also
is one which in its converse operation might not
infrequently lead to inopportune results.
The Foreign Enlistment Act of 1819 was then
passed in review. It was pronounced " effectual
for all reasonable purposes, and to the full extent
to which international law and comity can require."
In the opinion of the government, there was no
occasion for its amendment or strengthening. No
30 Before and After the Treaty of Washington :
move was made to that end ; no recommendation
submitted to Parliament. On the contrary, when
in March, 1863, the neutrality* laws were in debate,
Lord Palmerston did not hesitate to declare from
the ministerial benches, if the cry that those laws
were manifestly defective was raised " for the pur
pose of driving Her Majesty's government to do
something which may be derogatory to the dignity
of the country, in the way of altering our laws for
the purpose of pleasing another Government, then
all I can say is that such a course is not likely to
accomplish its purpose but the people
and Government of the United States must not
imagine that any cry which may be raised will in
duce us to come down to this House with a pro
posal to alter the law." Thus another door of
future possible escape was on this occasion closed
by the British Premier, so to speak, with a slam.
The law, however manifestly defective, was not
to be changed to please anyone.
Meanwhile, as if to make the record at all points
complete, and to show how very defective this im
mutable law was, the Courts passed upon the much-
discussed Foreign Enlistment Act of 1819. Under
the pressure brought to bear by the United States
minister a test case had been arranged, It was
tried before a jury in the Court of Exchequer on
the 22nd of June, 1863, the Laird iron-clads being
then still on the ways, but in an advanced stage of
construction. The vessel thus seized and proceeded
against in order to obtain a construction of the Act
was the Alexandra. This vessel was being built
with a view to warlike equipment. Of that, no
denial was possible. That she was intended for
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 31
use in the Confederate service was amoral certainty.
The Alabama was at that time in its full career of
destruction, — burning, sinking, destroying. Before
her ravages, the merchant marine of the United
States was fast disappearing, — the ships composing
it either going up in smoke, or being transferred to
other flags. With all these facts admitted or of
common knowledge, the Lord Chief Baron presid
ing at the Alexandra trial proceeded to instruct the
jury on the law. The Foreign Enlistment Act was,
he told them, not designed for the protection of
belligerent powers, or to prevent Great Britain
being made the base of naval operations directed
against nations with which that country was at
peace. The purpose of the statute was solely to
prevent hostile naval encounters within British
waters ; and, to that end, it forbade such equipment
of the completed ship as would make possible im
mediate hostile operations, it might be " before they
left the port/' Such things had happened; "and
that has been the occasion of this statute." He
closed with these words — "if you think the object
was to build a ship in obedience to an order, and
in compliance with a contract, leaving those who
bought it to make what use they thought fit of it,
then it appears to me the Foreign Enlistment Act
has not been in any degree broken."
The jury, of course, under such an interpretation
of the statute, rendered a verdict for the defendants,
and that verdict the audience in the court-room re
ceived with an outburst of applause. This outburst
of applause was significant ; more significant than
even the charge of the Judge. Expressive of the
feelings of the British people, it pointed directly to
32 Before and After the Treaty of Washington:
the root of the trouble. The trial took place tow
ards the close of June, 1863, — a few days only be
fore Gettysburg; and, at that* time, England, so far
as the United States was concerned, had reached a
state of mind Elizabethan rather than Victorian.
The buccaneering blood, — the blood of Drake, of
Cavendish, and of Frobisher, — was stirring in Brit
ish veins. The Alabama then stood high in public
admiration,- — a British built ship, manned by a Brit
ish crew, armed with British guns, it was success
fully eluding the "Yankee" ships of war, and de
stroying a rival commercial marine. Wherever
the British jurisdiction extended the Alabama was
a welcome sojourner from the weary sea. The com
pany on the decks of British mail steamers cheered
her to the echo as they passed. At that time, so
strong among the influential classes of Great Britain
was the feeling of sympathy for the South, and so
intense was the emnity to the Union, mixed with a
contempt as outspoken as it was ill-advised, that
those sentiments were well-nigh all-pervasive.
Speaking shortly after Richard Cobden said — " I
declare to you that, looking at what is called in a
cant phrase in London, ' society ' ; looking at so
ciety — and society, I must tell you, means the upper
ten thousand, with whom Members of Parliament
are liable to come in contact at the clubs and else
where in London ; looking at what is called ' society '
—looking at the ruling class, if we may use the
phrase, that meet in the purlieus of London, nine-
teen-twentieths of them were firmly convinced from
the first that the civil war in America could only
end in separation." Captain Bulloch asserted
twenty years later that, being thrown while in Eng-
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 33
land a good deal among Army and Navy men "I
never met one of either service who did not warmly
sympathize with the South " ; * and he further ex
pressed his belief that this was the feeling of " at
least five out of every seven in the middle and
upper classes." t To the like effect, Mr. G. W. P.
Bentinck, — a member of Parliament, — declared in a
speech at Kings Lynn in October, 1862, that, as far
as his experience went, " throughout the length and
breadth of the land, wherever I have travelled, I
never yet have met the man who has not at once
said — ' My wishes are with the Southerners ' " ;
and he went on to add that this feeling was mainly
due to the fact that the Southerner was " fighting
against one of the most grinding, one of the most
galling, one of the most irritating attempts to estab
lish tyrannical government that ever disgraced the
history of the world." Mr. Gladstone's unfortunate
utterance at about the same time passed into his
tory ; from which it failed not afterwards to return
sorely to plague him. " We may anticipate with
certainty the success of the Southern States so far
as regards their separation from the North.
That event is as certain as any event yet future and
contingent can be ; " and again, ten months later,
he said in Parliament, — " We do not believe that the
restoration of the American Union by force is attain
able. I believe that the public opinion of this country
is unanimous upon that subject. * * * I do not
think there is any real or serious ground for doubt
as to the issue of this contest." Four months pre
vious, Mr. Gladstone's associate in the cabinet, Earl
Russell, had lent emphasis to this opinion by de-
* Bulloch, vol. ii, p. 308. \ Ibid. , i, 294.
34 Before and After the Treaty of Washington:
claring in the House of Lords — " There may be one
end of the war that would prove a calamity to the
United States and to the world, and especially ca
lamitous to the negro race in those countries, and
that would be the subjugation of the South by the
North." With this idea that there could be but
one outcome of the struggle firmly established in
their minds, influential members of the Cabinet did
not urge recognition simply because, in view of the
certainty of the result, they deemed such action
unnecessary and impolitic.* The whole British
policy during the Civil War was shaped with a view
to this future state of affairs, and the creation of bad
precedents was ignored accordingly. The Union
was to be divided into two republics, unfriendly to
each other. There was to be one democratic, free-
labor republic, or more probably two such, lying
between the British possessions on the North, and
a slave-labor, cotton-growing republic on the South ;
the latter, almost of necessity, acting in close har
mony of interest, commercial and political, with
Great Britain. For Great Britain eternity itself had
thus no day of reckoning.
Relying on this simple faith in a certain future,—
this absolute confidence that the expected only could
occur, — utterances like the following appeared in
the editorial columns of the Morning Post, the Lon
don journal understood most closely to reflect the
opinions of the Prime Minister. " From the ruling
of the judge [in the case of the Alexandra^ it ap
peared that the Confederate Government might with
ease obtain as many vessels in this country as they
pleased without in any manner violating our laws.
* Bulloch, vol. ii, p. 5.
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 35
It may be a great hardship to the Federals that
their opponents should be enabled to create a navy
in foreign ports, but, like many other hardships en
tailed on belligerents, it must be submitted to ; " *
while, five months before this same organ of
" society " and the " influential classes " had reached
the comfortable conclusion that, so far as the Ala
bama was concerned, the fact " she sails upon the
ocean is one of those chances of war to which the
Government of the United States ought with dignity
and resignation to submit."
II
Fortunately for maritime law, fortunately for itself,
the British Government paused at this point. The
" Laird rams," as they were now known, presented a
test case. London " society " and the irresponsible
press of Great Britain might, like the audience in
the Court of Exchequer, applaud the charge of the
Lord Chief Baron, and gladly accept the law he laid
down that it was legal for a belligerent to create a
navy in a neutral port. This was actually beingdone.
Theretofore the cases had been those of individual
commerce-destroyers only. Now, an armament was in
course of construction in a British port intended for a
naval operation of magnitude against a foreign bel
ligerent with which Great Britain was at peace. The
vessels, moreover, were equipped with weapons of
offensive warfare — their beaks. Their purpose and
destination could not be proven in any legal pro
ceedings ; but, known of all men, they were hardly
* Morning Post, March 14, August 10, 1863.
36 Before and After the Treaty of Washington :
concealed by fraudulent bills of sale. The law as
laid down by the Lord Chief Baron in the case of
the Alexandra might, therefore, as " crowner's quest
law " be of the very first class ; but, for Her Maj
esty's government such a construction of the law,—
an act in the Statute-book of Great Britain, — ob
viously involved serious consequences. Were they
prepared to go to the journey's end on the road
thus pointed out? To what might it lead? To
what might it not lead ?
Into the causes of the change of policy which now
took place it is not necessary here to enter.
The law was expounded in the Alexandra case on
the 22nd of June, 1863; Vicksburg surrendered,
and the battle of Gettysburg was fought, on the 3rd
and 4th of the following July ; three months later,
on the Qth of October, the detention of the Laird
iron-clads was ordered. After the rulings of the
court in the Alexandra case, there can be no ques
tion that the law was " strained " to effect this
seizure.* There can be equally little question that
the detention of the iron-clads was a surprise to
the American minister then representing the coun
try in London. It marked also a radical change
in the policy pursued by the Palmerston-Russell
ministry. Earl Russell apparently now first real
ized the fact he afterwards announced in Parlia
ment, " that in this conflict the Confederate States
have no ports, except those of the Mersey and the
Clyde, from which to fit out ships to cruise against
* The seizure was severely criticised in the House of Commons ;
and, on a division — nominally for papers, but really amounting to a
vote of censure — Earl Russell's conduct in stopping the Laird rams
was approved by a comparatively small majority. Speech of Attorney -
General in House of Commons, August i, 1870.
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 37
the Federals " ; and it seems to have dawned upon
him that, in the case of future hostilities, other nations
besides Great Britain had ports, and, in certain not
impossible contingencies, those ports might become
bases, — perhaps inconvenient bases, — of maritime
warfare, as were now those of the Mersey and the
Clyde. It was a thing much to be deplored that
rules did work both ways, and that curses, like
chickens, would come home to roost ; but, this being
so, it behooved prudent statesmen to give a certain
degree of consideration to the precedents they were
creating.
Whether Earl Russell reasoned in this wise or
not, certain it is that after September, 1863, Great
Britain ceased to be available as a base of Confed
erate naval operations. The moment it felt so dis
posed, Her Majesty's Government found means to
cause the neutrality of Great Britain to be respected ;
and, in spite of the rulings of the courts, the For
eign Enlistment Act proved something more than
a "purely nominal" obstacle in the way of a bellig
erent in search of a base of maritime warfare. My
own belief, derived from a tolerably thorough study
of the period, is that numerous causes contributed
to bringing that change about. Among the more
potent of these I should enumerate the stirring of
the British conscience which followed the Emanci
pation Proclamation of September, 1862; the convic
tion, already referred to, that any decisive action on
the part of Great Britain was unnecessary as well
as impolitic, the ultimate success of the Confederacy
being a foregone conclusion ; the troubled state of
affairs on the continent as respects both Poland and
Denmark ; and, above all, the honest anger of Earl
38 Before and After the Treaty of Washington:
Russell at the consequences which had ensued from
the evasion of the Alabama. The precedent he
had himself helped to create* startled him,— he re
coiled in presence of its logical consequences ; and,
in view of the complications then existing on the
continent, or there in obvious process of develop
ment, the great financial and commercial interests of
Great Britain showed signs of awakening. Omi
nous queries were shortly propounded ; and, on the
evening of the ijth of May, 1864, the head of the
great house of Barings fairly startled the country
by rising in the House of Commons, and suggesting
certain queries to the government, — queries, now,
thirty-seven years later, of much significance in con
nection with events in South Africa; — " I am," Mr.
Baring said, " desirous of inviting the attention of
the House to the situation in which this country
will be if the precedents now established are acted
upon in the event of our being involved in war,
while other States are neutral. Under the present
construction of our municipal law there is no neces
sity that a belligerent should have a port, or even
a seashore. Provided she has money, or that
money is supplied to her by a neutral, she may fit
out vessels, and those vessels need not go to the
country to which they are said to belong, but may
go about the seas dealing destruction to British
shipping and property. Take the case, which I
hope we shall avoid, of our being at war with Ger
many. There would, as things now stand, be noth
ing to prevent the Diet of Frankfort from having a
fleet. A number of the small States of Germany
might unite together, and become a great naval
power. Money is all that is required for the pur-
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 39
pose, and Saxony, without a seashore, might have
a First Lord of the Admiralty, without any docks,
who might have a large fleet at his disposal The
only answer we could make under those circum
stances to France and the United States, who as
neutrals might fit out vessels against us on the pre
tence that they were German cruisers, was that we
would go to \var with them ; so that by the course
of policy which we are pursuing we render our
selves liable to the alternative of having our property
completely destroyed, or entering into a contest
with every neutral Power in the world. We ought,
under these circumstances, to ask ourselves what
we have at stake. I will not trouble the House
with statistics on the point, but we all know that our
commerce is to be found extending itself to every
sea, that our vessels float in the waters of every
clime, that even with our cruisers afloat it would
not be easy to pick up an Alabama, and that the
destruction of our property might go on despite all
our powers and resources. What would be the re
sult ? That we must submit to the destruction of
our property, or that our shipping interests must
withdraw their ships from the ocean. That is a
danger, the apprehension of which is not confined
to myself, but is shared by many who are far better
able to form a judgment than I am. Recollect that
your shipping is nearly twice at large as that of the
United States. If you follow the principle you are
now adopting as regards the United States, you
must be prepared to stand the consequences. So
strongly was this felt by ship-owners that memorials
have already been addressed to the government
upon the subject. * * * Last night the hon.
4O Before and After the Treaty of Washington :
Member for Liverpool presented a petition, signed
by almost all the great ship-owners of that place,
enforcing the same view and- expressing the same
anxiety. I am a little surprised at this manifestation,
because what is happening around us is a source of
great profit to our ship-owners ; but it is a proof that
they are sensible that the future danger will far pre
ponderate over the present benefit and advantages."
When too late, it thus dawned even on the ship
builders of the Mersey that, for a great commercial
people, confederacy with corsairs might be a danger
ous, even if not, in their eyes, a discreditable voca
tion. Firms openly dealing in burglars' tools are
not regarded as reputable.
But one way of escape from their own precedents
might yet remain. It had always been the conten
tion of Mr. Charles Sumner that a neutral-built
ship-of-war could not be commissioned by a bellig
erent on the high seas. It was and remained a
pirate, — the common enemy of mankind, — until its
arrival at a port of the belligerent to which it be
longed, where alone it could be fitted out and com
missioned as a ship-of-war.* As any port will do
in a storm, and drowning men proverbially clutch at
straws, it is possible to imagine a British ship
owner, as he foresaw in vision the Transvaal and
the Orange Free State involved in a war with Great
Britain, appropriating this contention, and trying to
incorporate it into the International Code. He
would then have proceeded to argue somewhat as
follows : — " Mr. Baring was a banker, not a publi
cist. As a publicist he was wrong. A non-mari
time nation cannot be a maritime belligerent," &c.,
* Works, vii, 358 ; Pierce's Sumner t vol. iv, p, 394.
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 41
&c. But, during the course of our Civil War, the
British authorities, legal and political, seemed to
take pleasure in shutting against themselves every
possible outlet of future escape. So, in this case,
referring to the contention of Mr. Sumner, the At
torney-General, speaking after Mr. Baring, ex
pressed himself as follows : — " To say that a country
whose ports are blockaded is not at liberty to avail
herself of all the resources which may be at her
command in other parts of the world, that she can
not buy ships in neutral territory and commission
them as ships of war without bringing them to her
own country first, is a doctrine which is quite pre
posterous, and all the arguments founded upon
such a doctrine only tend to throw dust into men's
eyes and to mislead them/'
The morning following this significant debate the
tone of Lord Palmerston's London organ under
went a significant change. Grant and Lee were
that day confronting each other in the Wilderness,
resting for a brief space after the fearful wrestle of
Spotsylvania ; in London, the conference over the
Schleswig-Holstein struggle was in session, and
the feelings of Great Britain were deeply enlisted
on behalf of Denmark, borne down by the united
weight of Prussia and Austria. So, in view of im
mediate possible hostilities, the Post now exclaimed
— " We are essentially a maritime power, and are
bound by every motive of self-interest to watch
with jealousy the observance of neutral maritime
obligations. We may be at war [South Africa !]
ourselves ; we have a future to which to look for
ward, and we must keep in mind the precept which
inculcates the necessity of doing to others as we
42 Before and After the Treaty of Washington:
would be done by. * * * War is no longer con
sidered by the commercial classes an impossibility;
and the ship-owners of Liverpool are considering
what is to become of their property should we un
happily become involved in war, and innumerable
Alabama* issue from neutral [American !] ports to
prey upon British commerce throughout the world.
Suppose that circumstances obliged us to espouse
the cause of Denmark against her ruthless enemies,
would not the German States hasten to follow the
bad example set them by the Confederates, and at
which the inefficiency of our law obliges us to con
nive ? " And the London organ of " society " and
the "influential classes" then added this sentence
which, under certain conditions actually existing
thirty-five years later would have been of very preg
nant significance — " Some petty principality which
boasts of a standing army of five hundred men, but
not of a single foot of sea-coast [e.g. the Trans
vaal, the Orange Free State] might fit out cruisers
in neutral [e.g. American] ports to burn, sink and
destroy the commerce of Great Britain ; and the
enormous amount of damage which may be done in
a very short time, even by a single vessel, we know
from the history of the Alabama." *
Thus when the war of the Rebellion closed the
Trans-Atlantic outlook was, for Great Britain, omi
nous in the extreme. Just that had come about
which English public men and British newspapers
had wearied themselves with asseverating could
not possibly happen. The Times and Morning
Post especially had loaded the record with predic
tions, every one of which the event falsified ; and,
* The Post, May 14 and 18, 1864.
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 43
in doing so, they had gone out of their way to
generate bitter ill-feeling by the arrogant expres
sion of a contemptuous dislike peculiarly British
and offensive. For example, the Times, " well
aware that its articles weigh in America more
heavily than despatches " first referred to us as
"this insensate and degenerate people," and then
proceeded to denounce " this hateful and atrocious
war * * * this horrible war," which it declared
was of such a character that its defenders could not
find in all Europe a single society where they could
make themselves heard. * In the same common
temper, the Standard, reviewing the results of the
conflict on the very day that Vicksburg, unknown
to it, had surrendered, declared — " We have
learned to dislike and almost to despise the North ;
to sympathize with, and cordially to admire, the
South. We have learnt that the South is, on the
whole, in the right ; that the North is altogether,
wilfully and wickedly in the wrong." But these
expressions of comfortable contempt were not con
fined to the London press. Liverpool, for instance,
was conspicuous as a hot-bed of Confederate
sympathy; and, as early as August, 1861, the
leading journal of that city expressed itself as fol
lows — " We have no doubt whatever that the vast
majority of the people of this country, certainly
of the people of Liverpool, are in favor of the
cause espoused by the Secessionists. The defeat
of the Federalists gives unmixed pleasure ; the
success of the Confederates is ardently hoped, nay,
confidently predicted." A year later, the London
Post referred in the same tone to those whom it
* July 9, 12, 1862.
44 Before and After the Treaty of Washington:
saw fit, in its own great wisdom, to describe as
" the infatuated people across the Atlantic " — " The
whole history of the war is a history of mistakes on
the Federal side. Blinded by self-conceit, influ
enced by passion, reckless of the lessons of history,
and deaf of warnings which every one else could
hear and tremble at, the people of the North
plunged into hostilities with their fellow-citizens
without so much as a definite idea what they were
fighting for, or on what condition they would cease
fighting. They went to war without a cause, they
have fought without a plan, and they are prosecut
ing it still without a principle." It would then
pleasantly 'refer to the ''suicidal frenzy" of a con
test in which two sections were striving " with a
o
ferocity unknown since the times when Indian
scalped Indian on the same continent"; and sor
rowfully added — " American pride contemptuously
disdains to consider what may be thought of its
proceedings by the intelligent in this country ; in
flated self-sufficiency scorns alike the friendly advice
of the disinterested and the indignant censures of a
disapproving world." And then, finally, when its
every prevision had proved wrong and all its pre
dictions were falsified, as it contemplated the total
collapse of the Confederacy, this organ of " society "
and the " influential classes " innocently observed—
' The antipathy entertained by the United States
toward England has, owing to circumstances en
tirely beyond our control, and into which it is un
necessary now to enter, been fanned into a fiercer
flame during the progress of the war; " and it now
referred to Great Britain as " the mother country." *
*May 15, 1865.
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 45
Recorded utterances of this character could be
multiplied indefinitely ; I take these few, selected
at random, merely to illustrate the extreme diffi
culty of the position into which the precedents and
declarations she herself had established and put
freely on record brought Great Britain at the close
of our Civil War. It is useless to say that, as be
tween nations, irresponsible utterances through the
press and from the platform are not entitled to con
sideration, and should not be recalled. They, none
the less, are a fact ; and they are not forgotten.
On the contrary, they rankle. They did so in 1865.
Happily, however, for the peace of the world, a
few great facts then stood forth, established, and of
record ; and it is these prominent facts which influ
ence popular feeling. English built ships, — English-
manned and English-armed, — had swept the Amer
ican merchant marine from the seas ; but, most
fortunately, an American man-of-war of not unequal
size had, within sight of English shores, sent to the
bottom of the British channel the single one of
those commerce-destroyers which had trusted itself
within reach of our guns. In this there was much
balm. Again, America was weary of strife, and
longed for rest ; and it could well afford to bide its
time in view of the changed tone and apprehensive
glances which now came across the Atlantic from
those whose forecast had deceived them into a po
sition so obviously false. In common parlance,
Great Britain had made her bed ; she might now
safely be left to a prolonged nightmare as she lay
in it. The United States, — no longer an " insen
sate and degenerate people " —could well afford to
wait. Its time was sure to come.
46 Before and After the Treaty of Washington :
Great Britain, also, was most uncomfortably of
this same opinion. The more ner public men re
flected on the positions taken by the Palmerston-
Russell ministry, and the precedents therein created,
the worse they seemed, and the less propitious the
outlook. The reckoning was long ; and it was
chalked plainly on the wall. It was never lost to
sight or out of mind. The tendency of events was
obvious. They all pointed to retaliation in kind ;
for, in the Summer of 1866 the House of Repre
sentatives at Washington passed, without one dis
senting vote, a bill to repeal the inhibitions on the
American neutrality laws against the fitting out of
ships for belligerents. The threat was overt ; Great
Britain deprecatingly met it by the passage, in 1 870,
of a new and stringent Foreign Enlistment Act.
Just six years elapsed between the close of the
War of the Rebellion (May, 1864) and the signing
of the Treaty of Washington (May, 1871). For
Great Britain those were years of rapid education
toward a new code of international law. Consider
ing the interval traversed, the time of traversing it
cannot be said to have been long. When, in the
midst of the Civil War, tidings of the depredations
of the British-built Confederate commerce-destroy
ers reached America, instructions were sent to the
Minister of the United States in London to demand
reparation. To this demand Earl Russell, then
Foreign Secretary, in due time responded. Not
only did he deny any liability, legal or moral, but
he concluded his reply with this highly significant,
not to say petulant, remark,—" I have only, in con
clusion, to express my hope that you may not be
instructed again to put forward claims which Her
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 47
Majesty's government cannot admit to be founded
on any grounds of law and justice." *
The discussion seemed closed ; Great Britain
had apparently taken her stand. In the words ot
the Foreign Secretary — " Her Majesty's govern
ment entirely disclaim all responsibility for any acts
of the Alabama!' This was in March, 1863. On
the i Qth of June, 1864, the depredations of the Ala
bama were brought to a summary close. When
the Confederate Secretary of War, at Richmond,
heard of the loss thus sustained, he wrote immedi
ately (July 1 8th) to the Liverpool bureau of his de
partment — " You must supply her place if possible,
a measure [now] of paramount importance " t This
despatch reached its destination on the 3Oth of Au
gust, and on the 2Oth of October the head of the
bureau had " the great satisfaction of reporting the
safe departure on the 8th inst." of the Sheiiandoah,
from London, and its consort, the Laurel, from
Liverpool, " within a few hours of each other " ;
and this in spite of " embarrassing and annoying
inquiries from the Customs and Board of Trade
officials." The Shenandoah now took up the work
of destruction which the Alabama was no longer
in position to continue. It thus devolved on the
American minister to present further demands
on the Foreign Secretary. But the situation was
now materially changed. Earl Russell had ab
ruptly closed the correspondence over the dep
redations of the Alabama seven weeks before the
unfortunate battle of Chancellorsville ; Lee sur
rendered at Appomattox just two days after Mr.
Adams brought to the notice of the Foreign Secre-
*Dip. Cor., 1863, 380. f Bulloch, vol. ii, p. 112.
48 Before and After the Treaty of Washington:
tary the depredations of the Shenandoah. A long
correspondence ensued, which was closed on the
2d of the following December by Lord Clarendon,
Earl Russell's successor as Foreign Secretary. His
despatch was brief; but in it he observed "that no
armed vessel departed during the war from a Brit
ish port to cruise against the commerce of the
United States " ; and he further maintained that
throughout the war "the British government have
steadily and honestly discharged all the duties in
cumbent on them as a neutral power, and have
never deviated from the obligations imposed on
them by international law." And yet in this corre
spondence the first step in the direction of a settle
ment was taken, — a step curiously characteristic of
Earl Russell. As indicative also of the amount of
progress yet made on the long road to be traversed,
it was the reverse of encouraging. Earl Russell
had got Great Britain into a position from which
she had in some way to be extricated. The events
of April and May, 1865, in America were very sig
nificant when viewed in their bearing on the fast
rising European complications incident to the blood-
and-iron policy to which Count Bismarck was delib
erately giving shape. Dark clouds, ominous of
coming storm, were hanging on the European hori
zon ; while America, powerful and at peace, low
ered angrily British-ward from across the Atlantic.
It was a continuous, ever-present menace, to be
averted only when approached in a large way.
One course, and but one course, was now open to
the Briiish statesman. To see and follow it called
for an eye and mind and pen very different, and far
more quick and facile, than the eye, mind and pen
American Civil War and War in tJie Transvaal. 49
with which nature had seen fit to endow the younger
scion of the ducal house of Bedford.
Had he been equal to the situation, it was then
in the power of Earl Russell to extricate Great Brit
ain from the position into which he had brought
her, and out of the nettle, danger, to pluck the
flower, safety. Nor would it have been difficult so
to do, and that without the abandonment of any po
sition he had taken. Satiated with battle and sat
isfied with success, America was then in complaisant
mood. A complete victor is always inclined to be
magnanimous, and that was a time when, as Mr.
Sumner afterwards expressed it, "' we would have
accepted very little." Taking advantage of this
national mental mood, it would have been possi
ble for Earl Russell then, while extricating Great
Britain from a false position, to have at once oblit
erated the recollection of the past and forestalled
the Treaty of Washington, securing at the same
time the adoption at little cost of a new principle of
international law obviously in the interest of Great
Britain. Still insisting in his correspondence with
the American minister that Her Majesty's govern
ment had, in the language of his successor, " stead
ily and honestly discharged all the duties incumbent
on them as a neutral power," and hence had in
curred no liability under any recognized principle or
precedent of international law for depredations com
mitted by Her Majesty's subjects beyond her juris
diction, — adhering firmly to this contention, he
might have gone on to recognize in the light of a
record which he had already admitted was a " scan
dal" and "a reproach to our laws," that a radical
* Pierce's Sumner, vol. iv, p. 384.
5O Before and After the Treaty of Washington :
change in the international code was obviously de
sirable, and that the time for it had come. The
neutral should be responsible*for results whenever,
after due notice of a contemplated infraction was
given (as in the cases of the Florida and Alabama),
she permitted her territory to be made by one bel
ligerent the base of operations against another.
The laws ought, he would have admitted, to be ad
equate to such an emergency ; and they should be
enforced. He might well then have expressed the
honest regret Great Britain felt that her laws had
during our Rebellion proved inadequate, and a
proper sense of the grievous injury the United
States had in consequence sustained. The rest of
the way out would then have been plain to him. In
view of Great Britain's commercial and maritime in
terests, she could well afford to incur large pecuni
ary sacrifices to secure the future protection in
volved in the change of international law contended
for by the American government. She could not
ask that protection for the future with no regard to
the past, That Great Britain had incurred to a cer
tain extent a moral obligation through the insuf
ficiency of her statutes, combined with the unsatis
factory state of international law, could not be denied
in view of the admission already made that the
cases of the Confederate commerce-destroyers were
a " scandal " and a "reproach." Under these cir
cumstances Great Britain was prepared to assent to
the modifications of international law now contended
for by the United States ; and, to secure the mani
fest future advantage involved in their adoption,
would agree, subject to reasonable limitations as to
extent of liability, &c., to have those principles op-
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 51
erate retrospectively in the case of such Confed
erate commerce-destroyers as had, after notice
given, sailed from British ports of origin during the
Civil War.
In the light of what afterwards occurred, including
the Treaty of Washington and the results of the
Geneva Arbitration, it is not difficult to imagine the
astonishment with which the American Minister
would have read a despatch couched in these terms,
and the gratification with which the American peo
ple would have hailed it. It would have been, in
the reverse, a repetition of the Trent experience.
The clouds would all have rolled away. While the
national pride of Great Britain would have suffered
no hurt, that of the United States would have been
immensely flattered. The one country would have
got itself gracefully, and cheaply, out of an impossible
position. It would have secured an advantage of
inestimable future value at a cost in reality nominal,
and a cost which it afterwards had to pay; the other
party would have achieved a great diplomatic vic
tory, crowning and happily rounding out its mili
tary successes. Most unfortunately, as the result
showed, Earl Russell did not have it in him thus to
rise to the occasion. On the contrary, with that
curious, conventional conservatism which seems in
nate in a certain class of English public men, — an
inability to recognize their own interests if pre
sented in unaccustomed form, — the British Foreign
Secretary now declined to consider those very
changes in the law which Parliament five years
later voluntarily adopted, and which, seven years
later, Great Britain agreed to incorporate in a sol
emn treaty. The proposed liability for the abuse o
5 2 Before and After the Treaty of Washington :
neutrality by belligerents, so invaluable to England,
Lord Russell now characterized as ' most burden
some, and, indeed, most dangerous " ; while, with a
simplicity almost humorous, he ejaculated, " surely
we are not bound to go on making new laws, ad in-
finitum, because new occasions arise." *
So, high-toned Englishman as he was, Lord
Russell, guided by his instincts and traditions, as
Prime Minister characteristically went on to make
perceptibly worse what, as Eoreign Secretary, he
had already made quite sufficiently bad. He did
not aggrandize, he distinctly belittled, his case. In
reply to the renewed demands of the American
Minister, he suggested, in a most casual way, the
appointment of a joint commission, to which should
be referred " all claims arising during the late civil
war [his note was dated August 3oth, nearly four
months after the capture of Jefferson Davis] which
the two powers shall agree to refer." The corre
spondence was at once published in the Gazette ;
and, so general was the proposition of reference,
that the Times, in commenting editorially on it the
morning after publication, admitted the desirability
of a settlement, and construed the proposal of a
commission as designed to embrace all the Ameri
can claims. The ''Thunderer's" utterance on this
point might be inspired, — a feeler of public opinion.
A possible way out seemed to open. Earl Russell
characteristically lost no time in closing it. At a
later day, after the Alabama claims had been arbi
trated and paid, his Lordship asserted that he had
always been willing to have them assumed, or, as
he expressed it, would " at once have agreed to arbi-
*The official correspondence in respect to the Alabama, p. 145.
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 53
tration," could he have received assurances on cer
tain controverted issues, involving", as he consid
ered, the honor and dignity of Great Britain.*
This was clearly an after-thought, reached in the
light of subsequent events. No suggestion of the
sort was ever made by him to Mr. Adams ; and
when, in August, 1865, such a possible construc
tion was put upon his despatches, he made haste
to repudiate it. In fact, Earl Russell, still Foreign
Secretary but soon to become Premier, was not
yet ready to take the first step in the educational
process marked out for Great Britain. The dose
was, indeed, a bitter one ; no wonder Lord Rus
sell contemplated it with a wry face.
So the Foreign Secretary in August, 1865, lost
no time in firmly closing the door which seemed
opening. The day following the editorial implica
tion of the Times there appeared in its columns an
official correction. The correctness of the implica
tion was denied. As Mr. Adams wrote in his
diary, the proposal of a joint commission, thus ex
plained, " really stands as an offer to refer the Brit
ish claims, and a facile refusal to include ours.
Wonderful liberality ! " ; and, a few days later, he
added — "the issue of the present complication now
is that Great Britain stands as asking for a com
mission through which to procure a settlement of
claims advanced by herself, at the same time that
she refuses at the threshold to permit the introduc
tion of all the material demands we have against
her. Thus the British position passes all the time
from bad to worse. The original blunder, inspired
by the over-eagerness to see us divided, has im-
* Recollections and Suggestions, p. 278.
54 Before and After the Treaty of Washington :
pelled a neutral policy, carried to such extremes of
encouragement to one belligerent as seemingly to
hazard the security of British commerce, whenever
the country shall become involved in a war. The
sense of this inspires the powers of Eastern Europe
with vastly increased confidence in pursuing their
particular objects. It is not difficult to see that
whatever views Russia may ultimately have on
Constantinople will be much fortified by a con
sciousness of the diversion which it might make
through the neutral ports of the United States
against the British commerce of one half of the
globe. We lose nothing by the passage of time ;
Great Britain does."
This somewhat obvious view of the situation evi
dently suggested itself to the mind of Earl Rus
sell's successor in the Foreign Office, for Earl Rus
sell, on the death of Lord Palmerston in the Autumn
of 1865, became Prime Minister. So, one day in
the following December, Mr. Adams was sum
moned to an official interview with the new Secre
tary. The conversation at this interview, after the
matters immediately in hand were disposed of,
passed to the general and well-worn subject of the
neutrality observed by Great Britain during the
struggle which, seven months before, had come to
its close. Lord Clarendon, Mr. Adams wrote, in
sisted that the neutrality " had been perfectly kept ;
and I signifying my conviction that a similar obser
vation of it, as between two countries so closely
adjacent as Great Britain and France, would lead
to a declaration of war by the injured party in
twenty-four hours. Here we might have closed
the conference, but his Lordship proceeded to con-
American Civil War and War in tJie Transvaal. 55
tinue it by remarking that he had it on his mind to
make a suggestion. He would do so. He went
on to express his long conviction of the expediency
of a union of sentiment and policy between two
great nations of the same race. He hoped to see
them harmonize, after the immediate irritation con
sequent upon the late struggle should have passed
away, more than ever before. There were many
things in what was called International Law that
are now in a vague and unsatisfactory condition ; it
would, therefore, seem very desirable that by some
form of joint consultation, more or less extensive,
these points could be fixed on something like a
permanent basis. He enquired of me whether I
thought my government would be at all inclined to
entertain the idea. I replied that the object was
certainly desirable ; but that, in the precise state
in which things had been left, I could give no opin
ion on the question proposed. All that I could do
was to report it ; and that not in any official way.
His Lordship talked a little grandly about our over
looking the past, letting bygones be bygones, and
considering these questions solely on their abstract
importance as settling great principles. He said
that two such very great countries could scarcely
be expected to stoop to concessions or admissions
in regard to one another. Would I reflect upon
the whole matter. All this time I was rather a lis
tener than a speaker, and committed myself to noth
ing but vague professions. The fact stares up that
this government is not easy at the way the case has
been left by Lord Russell, and desires to get out of
it without mortification. My own opinion is rather
against any effort to help them out. I ought to
56 Before and After the Treaty of Washington :
note that yesterday Mr. W.^E. Forster called to
see me for the purpose of urging precisely the same
tentative experiment at Washington. He reasoned
with me more frankly, in the same strain, and evi
dently contemplated a more complete process of
rectification of the blunder than Lord Clarendon
could hint. I also talked to him with more free
dom, in a strain of great indifference about arriving
at any result ; the advantage was on our side, and
I saw no prospect of its diminishing with time. He
ended by asking me to think a little longer about
a mode of running the negotiation ; for, if it could
be done, he felt sure that enough power could be
applied to bring this government to consent to it.
I replied that all that could be done now must pass
through private channels. The record was made
up, and I had no inclination to disturb it."
This call of Mr. Forster at that particular junct
ure was significant ; for Mr. Forster less than a
month before had gone into Earl Russell's ministry,
becoming Under Secretary for the Colonies ; and
Mr. Forster was well known to be a friend of the
United States. Badly compromised by Lord Rus
sell's blundering committals, the government at
least appreciated the situation, and was feeling for
a way out. The position now taken by the Foreign
Secretary and Mr. Forster was clearly suggestive
of the subsequent Johnson-Clarendon convention.
Nothing, however, immediately resulted. Lord
Clarendon had, indeed, at the time of his talk with
Mr. Adams, already put his suggestion in shape to
be formally submitted to Secretary Seward through
the British minister at Washington ; and when, six
weeks later, his despatch appeared in the Blue
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 57
Book, Mr. Adams wrote: " The object is now evi
dent. It is to blunt the effect of Lord Russell's
original blunder, and try to throw the odium of it
back by a new offer, which we must decline. The
contrivance will scarcely work. It is certainly civil
to propose that we should bear all the conse
quences of their policy, and consent to secure
them against any future application of it to them
selves."
As showing how very sensitive to the situation
in which they had been placed the English now
were, Mr. Adams two days later mentioned a long
conversation with Mr. Oliphant, a member of Par
liament then just back from a visit to America. The
Fenian movement was at that time much in evi
dence through its British dynamite demonstrations,
and the Irish in the United States were conse
quently in a state of chronic excitement. Mr. Oli
phant called in regard to it. After some discussion
of that matter, the conversation drifted to the policy
pursued by the British government toward the
United States, of which Mr. Oliphant " evidently had
not approved. It should have been either positive
intervention, or positive amity. The effort to avoid
both had excited nothing but ill-will from both par
ties in the war. One Southern man whom he had
met had gone so far as to declare that he was ready
to fight England even on the case of the Alabama.
I briefly reviewed the course taken, and pointed out
the time when the cordiality between the countries
could have been fully established. It was not im
proved; and now I had little hope of restoring it
for many years." It was during the ensuing Sum
mer that the lower House of Congress passed by
58 Before and After the Treaty of Washington:
acclamation the bill already ^referred to, repealing
the inhibitions of our neutrality laws.
A change of ministry now took place in Great
Britain. Earl Russell, with the Liberals, went out
of office, and Lord Derby, at the head of the Con
servatives, came in. Lord Stanley, the oldest son
of the new Premier, succeeded Lord Clarendon in
the Foreign Office, and again the old straw was
threshed over. A distinct step was, however, now
marked in advance. The new Prime Minister took
occasion to intimate publicly that a proposition for
the arrangement of the Alabama claims would be
favorably entertained ; and the 7^'mes, of course un
der inspiration, even went so far as to admit that
Earl Russell's position on that subject was based on
a "somewhat narrow and one-sided view of the
question at issue. It was not safe," it now went on
to say, " for Great Britain to make neutrals the sole
and final judges of their own obligations." This
was a distinct enlargement of the " insular" view. It
amounted to an abandonment of the contention that
a petty jury in an English criminal court was the
tribunal of last resort on all questions involving the
international obligations of Great Britain.
The interminable diplomatic correspondence now
began afresh ; and, in the course of it, Secretary
Seward rested the case of the United States largely
on what both he and Mr. Adams termed " the pre
mature and injurious proclamation of belligerency "
issued by the British government in May, i86[.
This he pronounced the fruitful source whence all
subsequent evil came. Lord Stanley took issue
with him on that point. He did not deny a respon
sibility for the going forth of Confederate commerce-
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 59
destroyers from British ports, and a certain liability
for the damages by them caused ; but, he contended,
the British government could not consent to arbi
trate the question whether the Confederacy was
prematurely recognized as a belligerent. The rec
ognition of belligerency in any given case was, he
contended, a matter necessarily resting in the dis
cretion of a sovereign, neutral power. He inti
mated, however, a willingness to arbitrate all other
questions at issue.
In view of the position always from the com
mencement taken by the American Secretary of
State and his representative in London, this limited
arbitration could not be satisfactory. Time and
again Secretary and Minister had emphasized the
impropriety and unfriendliness of the Queen's Proc
lamation of May 1 3th, 1861, and the consequences
thereof, so momentous as scarcely to admit of com
putation. Accordingly, the discussion again halted.
In June, 1868, Mr. Reverdy Johnson, of Maryland,
succeeded Mr. Adams in London ; and, once more,
negotiations were renewed. And now the British
government had got so far on the way to its ulti
mate and inevitable destination, that, a discreet si
lence being on both sides observed in the matter of
the proclamation of May, 1861, a convention was
readily agreed to covering all claims of the citizens
and subjects of the two countries against the gov
ernments of each. While this treaty was in course
of negotiation, another change of ministry took
place in Great Britain ; and Mr. Gladstone, who
had been Chancellor of the Exchequer throughout
the Civil War, became Premier, Earl Russell being
now finally retired from official life. Lord Claren-
60 Before and After the Treaty of Washington :
don was again placed in charge of the Foreign Of
fice. Under these circumstances, the form of con
vention agreed to by Lord Derby was revised by
his successor in such a way as to make it reasonably
satisfactory to Secretary Seward, and, on the T4th
of January, 1869, it received the signatures of Mr.
Johnson and Lord Clarendon. It was known as
the Johnson-Clarendon Convention.
In hurrying this very important negotiation to so
quick a close both Secretary Seward and Reverdy
Johnson were much influenced by a very natural
ambition. They greatly desired that a settlement
of the momentous issues between the two great
English-speaking nations should be effected through
their agency. Mr. Seward especially was eager in
his wish to carry to a final solution the most difficult
of the many intricate complications which dated back
to the first weeks of his occupation of the State De
partment. Accordingly he did not now repeat his
somewhat rhetorical arraignment of Great Britain
in the correspondence of two years before, because
of the proclamation of 1861. It had become simply
a question of the settlement of the claims of indivi
dual citizens and subjects of one country against the
government of another. Lord Stanley's contention
on the belligerency issue was tacitly accepted as
sound. This, as will presently appear, implied a
great deal. It remained to be seen whether that
primal offence, — that original sin which
" Brought death into the world and all our woe,"
could thus lightly and in silence be relegated to the
limbo of things unimportant, and so, quite forgotten.
The negotiation had been entered upon in Au-
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 61
gust, 1868; the convention was executed in Janu
ary following". But in the interim a presidential
election had taken place in the United States ; and?
when the treaty reached America, the administra
tion of Andrew Johnson was, in a few weeks only}
to be replaced by that of General Grant. Secretary
Seward would then cease to be at the head of the
Department of State ; and, as he now wrote to
Reverdy Johnson, "the confused light of an incom
ing administration was spreading itself over the
country, rendering the consideration of political sub
jects irksome if not inconvenient." Charles Sumner
was at that time chairman of the Senate Committee
on Foreign Relations, a position he had held
through eight years. As chairman of that commit
tee the fate of the treaty rested largely with him.
The President-elect, with no very precise policy in
his mind to be pursued on the issues involved,
wished to have the claims convention go over until
his administration was in office ; and when, in Feb
ruary, the convention was taken up in the Senate
committee, all its members expressed themselves
as opposed to its ratification. " We begin to
day," Mr. Sumner then said, referring to the re
jection of the proposed settlement as a foregone
conclusion, "an international debate, the greatest
of our history, and, before it is finished, the greatest
of all history." *
* Pierce's Sumner, vol. iv, p. 368.
62 Before and After the Treaty of Washington :
III •
It was now that Mr. Fish came upon the scene,
as the successor of Secretary Seward in the Depart
ment of State. And here, perhaps, it would be
proper for me to say that I had no acquaintance of
a personal sort with Mr. Fish. Born in New York,
in 1808, he died at Garrison-on-the-Hudson in 1893.
He was, I am informed, President of this Society
for two years, — 1867-69, — necessarily resigning
the office when he accepted a position in the Cab
inet of President Grant. Later his name appears
as Vice-President, an office from which he withdrew
in 1888 because of advancing years. It so chanced
also that I never but once met Mr. Fish. In the
summer of 1890, I think it was, some years preced
ing his death, I passed a morning with him by ap
pointment at his country home at Garrison, going
there to obtain from him, if I could, some information
on a subject I was then at work on. Beyond this,
I knew him only as a public character, more or less
actively engaged in political life through twenty-five
exceptionally eventful years.
Held in its Committee of Foreign Affairs, the
Johnson-Clarendon convention was not acted upon
by the Senate, at the time sitting in executive ses
sion, until the I3th of April, 1869. It was then re
jected by a practically unanimous vote (54 to i) fol
lowing an elaborate speech in condemnation of it by
the chairman of the committee having it in charge.
That speech was important. It marked a possible
parting of the ways. In that speech, and by means
of it, Mr. Summer not only undid, and more than
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 63
undid, all that yet had been done looking to an am
icable adjustment of the questions at issue between
the two nations, but he hedged thick with difficul
ties any approach to such an adjustment in the
future. To appreciate this, the essential feature of
the Clarendon-Johnson convention must be borne
constantly in mind.
As I have already said, that convention provided
only for the settlement of the claims of individuals.
The question of liability was to be referred to ar
bitration. The right of Great Britain to judge for
itself as to the time and manner of the recognition
of the Confederacy as a belligerent power was not
called in question, or submitted to arbitrament. A
settlement was thus made possible ; indeed, the
way to a settlement was opened wide. The con
cession was also proper ; for, viewed historically,
and with a calm regard for recognized principles of
international law, it must be admitted that the long
and strenuously urged contention of Secretary Sew-
ard and Mr. Adams over what they described as the
"premature and injurious proclamation of belliger
ency," and the consequences of the precipitancy of
Great Britain in the early stages of the Rebellion,
was by them carried to an undue length. Un
questionably the British ministry did issue the very
important proclamation of May, 1861, with undue
haste ; and, in so doing, they were unquestionably
actuated by a motive they could not declare. The
newly accredited American Minister had not then
reached London ; but he was known to be on his
way, and, in fact, saw the just issued proclamation
in the Gazette the morning of his arrival. The in
tention of the Government undoubtedly was that
64 Before and After the Treaty of Washington :
this question should be disposed of, — be an accom
plished fact, — in advance of any protests. It had
been decided on ; discussion was useless. This
was neither usual nor courteous ; and from it much
was naturally inferred: but it by no means followed
that the step was taken in an unfriendly spirit, or
that it in fact worked any real prejudice to the
Union cause. That it was a grievous blow, given
with a hostile intent and the source of infinite sub
sequent trouble and loss to the United States gov
ernment, Secretary Seward and Mr. Adams always
afterwards maintained ; and, during the war, very
properly maintained. But for it, they asserted
and seem even to have persuaded themselves, the
Rebellion would have collapsed in its infancy. Be
cause of it, the struggling insurrection grew into a
mighty conflict, and was prolonged to at least twice
the length of life it otherwise would have attained.
And for this, and for the loss of life and treasure in
it involved, Great Britain stood morally account
able ; or, as Secretary Seward years afterwards
saw fit to phrase it, in rhetoric which now impresses
one as neither sober nor well considered, it was
Her Majesty's proclamation which conferred " upon
the insurrection the pregnant baptismal name of
Civil War."
There then was, and there now is, nothing on
which to base so extreme an assumption. On the
contrary, the historical evidence tends indisputably
to show that, though designedly precipitate, the
proclamation was issued in no unfriendly spirit. On
this point, the statement of William E. Forster is
conclusive. Mr. Forster, then a newly elected
member of Parliament, himself urged the issuance
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 65
of the proclamation, and looked upon it as a point
gained for the cause of the Union ; * and, eight
years later, he declared that " from personal recol
lection and knowledge " he could testify that "the
proclamation was not made with unfriendly animus "
to the United States. On the contrary, he showed
it was issued " in accordance with the earnest
wishes of himself and other friends of the North." f
Again, there is good ground on which to argue
that the premature issuance of the proclamation,
however intended, worked most happily in favor of
the Union cause. { It is obvious that the proclama
tion could not in any event have been withheld
more than ninety days ; for, within that period, the
Confederacy had at Manassas incontrovertibly es
tablished its position as a belligerent, and the Con
federate flag on the high seas, combined with a
Union blockade of 3,000 miles of hostile coast, was
evidence not easily explained away, of a de facto
government on land. Under such conditions, it is
idle to maintain that the recognition of belligerency
did not fairly rest in the discretion of a neutral, the
rights of whose people were being daily compro
mised, while their property was more than merely
liable to seizure and confiscation. Moreover, had
the recognition been delayed until after the dis
grace of Bull Run, it would in all probability have
been complete, and have extended to a recognition
of nationality as well as of mere de fctcto belliger
ency. Nor, finally, is there anything in the record,
as since more fully developed, which leads to the
belief that the struggle would have been shorter
* Reid's Forster^ vol. i, p. 335. f Ibid.,\o\. ii, p. 12.
\Life of C. F. Adams, American Statesman Series, pp. 171-4.
66 Before and After the Treaty of Washington:
even by a month, or in any degree less costly as
respects either life or treasure, had the Confederacy
never been buoyed up by the confident hope of a
voluntary foreign recognition, and consequent aid
from without. The evidence is indeed all to the
opposite effect. As since developed it is fairly con
clusive that, almost to the end, and unquestionably
down to the close of 1863, while the Confederates,
rank and file as well as leaders civil and military,
confidently counted on being able through the po
tency of their cotton control, to compel an even re
luctant European recognition, they never for a mo
ment doubted their ability to maintain themselves,
and achieve independence without extraneous aid of
any kind. Thirty years in preparation, calling into
action all the resources of a singularly masterful
and impulsive race, numbering millions and occu
pying a highly defensible territory of enormous
area, the Confederate rebellion was never that
sickly, accidental foster-child of Great Britain which,
in all their diplomatic contentions, Secretary Sew-
ard and Senator Sumner tried so hard to make it
out, — a mere bantling dandled into premature ex
istence by an incomplete foreign recognition. On
the contrary, from start to finish, it \vas Titanic in
proportions and spirit. It presented every feature
of war on the largest scale, domestic and foreign.
From the outset, neutral interests were involved ;
foreign opinion was evoked. In face of such con
ditions and facts as those to go on to the end of
the chapter asserting that such a complete and for
midable embodiment of all-pervasive warlike en
ergy should through years have been ignored as
an existing fact and refused a recognition even as
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 67
belligerent, was, historically speaking", the reverse
of creditable, — it was puerile. Yet, after this un
paralleled struggle had been brought to a close,
Secretary Seward had the assurance to assert in a
despatch to Mr. Adams written in January, 1867,
— " Before the Queen's proclamation of neutrality
the disturbance in the United States was merely a
local insurrection. It wanted the name of war to
enable it to be a civil war and to live " ; and this
was merely the persistent iteration of a similar
statement likewise made to Mr. Adams shortly
prior to the 1862 disasters at Shiloh and before
Richmond, — " If Great Britain should revoke her
decree conceding belligerent rights to the insur
gents to-day, this civil strife * * would end
to-morrow." *
The Johnson-Clarendon convention was open to
criticism at many points, and its rejection by the
Senate was altogether defensible. It did, how
ever, have one merit, it quietly relegated to ob
livion the wholly indefensible positions just referred
to. In so far it was thoroughly commendable. By
so much the discussion approached a common-
sense, amicable settlement, on a rational basis.
Unfortunately it was upon that very feature of the
treaty Mr. Sumner characteristically directed his
criticism and brought his rhetoric to bear. In so
doing he gave the debate a violent wrench, forcing
it back into its former impossible phase ; and, in so
far as in him lay, he made impossible any future
approach to an adjustment. Recurring in his
speech, subsequently published by order of the
Senate, to the sentimental grounds of complaint
* Dip. Cor., 1862, p. 43.
68 Before and After the Treaty of Washington :
because of conjectural injuries resulting from pre
cipitate action based on an asstimed unfriendly pur
pose in the issuance of the proclamation of May 13,
1 86 1, he proceeded to do what his great model
Burke had declared himself unwilling to do, — he
framed an indictment of a whole people, — an in
dictment of many counts, some small, others gran
diose, all couched in language incontestably Sum-
neresque. In 1869 he fairly outdid Seward in
1862. Because of the proclamation, and because
of that solely, he pronounced Great Britain respon
sible not only for the losses incurred through the
depredations of all British-built Confederate com
merce-destroyers, but for all consequent losses and
injuries, conjectural and consequential, computable
or impossible of computation, including the entire
cost of the Civil War during half its length, and an
estimate of the value of a large, and increasing,
proportion of the world's carrying trade ; with in
terest to date of settlement on the whole. The
" war prolongation " claim, as it was called, Mr.
Gladstone afterwards estimated as alone amounting
to eight thousand million dollars (^1,600,000,000) ;
while Mr. Sumner, from lack of information only,
failed to include a trifle of an hundred millions,
which the Confederate Secretary of the Navy had,
in 1864, put down as the increased expenditure im
posed on the United States by the naval operations
set on foot by his department alone.* The chair
man of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations
did, however, put himself on record deliberately,
and not in the heat of debate, as estimating the
money liability of Great Britain, because of the
*Bulloch, vol. ii, p. 112.
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 69
issuance of the proclamation of May 13, i86r, at
twenty-five hundred millions of dollars ; and he
clinched the matter by declaring that " whatever
may be the final settlement of these great accounts,
such must be the judgment in any chancery which
consults the simple equity of the case." And this
proposition the Senate of the United States now
by formal vote approved, promulgating it to the
world as its own.
No one in the United States was at that time so
familiar with the issues between the two countries,
or so qualified to speak understandingly of them as
Mr. Adams, from his Boston retirement then watch
ing the course of events with a deep and natural
interest. On reading Mr. Sumner's speech, and
noting the unanimity of the vote by which the Sen
ate had rejected the convention, he wrote, — " The
practical effect of this is to raise the scale of our
demands of reparation so very high that there is
no chance of negotiation left, unless the English
have lost all their spirit and character. The posi
tion in which it places Mr. Bright and our old
friends in the struggle is awkward to the last de
gree. Mr. Goldwin Smith, who was at the meet
ing of the [Massachusetts] Historical Society [which
chanced that day to be held] spoke of it to me with
some feeling. The whole affair is ominous of the
change going on in our form of government ; for
this is a pronunciamento from the Senate as the
treaty - making power. There were intimations
made to me in conversation that the end of it all
was to be the annexation of Canada by way of full
indemnity. Movements were going on in that re
gion to accelerate the result. I suppose that event
7O Before and After the Treaty of Washington:
is inevitable at some time ; but I doubt whether it
will come in just that form. Great Britain will not
confess a wrong, and sell Canada as the price of a
release from punishment. ' I begin to be ap
prehensive that the drift of this government under
the effect of that speech will be to a misunder
standing ; and, not improbably, an ultimate seizure
of Canada by way of indemnification." To the same
effect the British Minister at Washington, Mr. Thorn
ton, was apprising his government that, in the Senate
debate held in executive session, " Mr. Sumner was
followed by a few other Senators, all speaking in
the same sense. Mr. Chandler, Senator from
Michigan, seeming to be most violent against Eng
land, indicating his desire that Great Britain should
possess no territory on the American Continent."
Gen. Grant was now fairly entered on his first
presidential term, and Mr. Fish had, for some five
weeks, been Secretary of State. So far as con
cerned an amicable settlement between Great Brit
ain and the United States the outlook was quite
unpropitious ; less propitious in fact than at any
previous time. The new President was a military
man, and, in the language of Mr. Sumner, he was
" known to feel intensely on the Alabama question."
At the close of the war he had expressed himself in
a way hostile to Great Britain, not caring whether
she " paid ' our little bill ' or not ; upon the whole
he would rather she should not, and that would
leave the precedent of her conduct in full force for
us to follow, and he wished it understood that we
should follow it." During- the war, he had been
accustomed to regard Great Britain as " an enemy,"
and the mischief caused by her course he thought
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 71
not capable of over-statement; and, in May,
1869, Sumner wrote that the President's views
were in close conformity with those set forth in his
speech, and that after its delivery Gen. Grant had
thanked and congratulated him. Everything", con
sequently, now seemed to indicate that events must
take the course thus marked out for them. Great
Britain would have to face the contingencies of the
future weighted down by the policy followed by
Palmerston and Russell, and confronted by the
precedents of the Florida, the Alabama, and the
Skenandoah. She had taken her position in 1861-
65, defiantly proclaiming that, for her, conditions
could never be reversed, the womb of the future
contained no day of reckoning, — no South Africa.
Into the details of what now ensued, it is not
necessary here to enter. They are matter of his
tory ; and as such, sufficiently familiar. I shall pass
rapidly over even the Motley imbroglio, coming
directly to the difficulty between Mr. Fish and Mr.
Sumner, — high officials both, the one Secretary of
State, the other chairman of the Senate Committee
on Foreign Relations. In regard to this difficulty
much has been written ; more said. In discussing
it, whether by pen or word of mouth, no little tem
per has been displayed ; but, so far as I am aware,
its significance in an historical way has never been
developed. As I look upon it, it was an essential
factor, — almost a necessary preliminary to that read
justment of relations between the United States and
Great Britain now so influential a factor in the in
ternational relations of four continents.
The divergence between the two was almost im-
o
mediate. The position of Mr. Fish, as head of the
72 Before and After the Treaty of Washington :
State Department, was, so far as Mr. Sumner was
concerned, one of great and. constantly increasing
difficulty. The latter had then been seventeen
years a member of the Senate, and, during eight of
the seventeen, chairman of the Committee on For
eign Relations. Secretary Seward had been Mr.
Simmer's senior in the Senate, and afterwards Sec
retary of State from the commencement of Sumner's
chairmanship of his committee. Naturally, there
fore, though he had often been bitter in his attacks
on the Secretary, — at times, indeed, more suo, in
dulging even in language which knew no limit of
moderation, — he regarded him with very different
eyes from those through which he cast glances of a
somewhat downward kind on Seward's successor in
office. In earlier senatorial days, when they sat
together in that body during the Pierce administra
tion, Mr. Fish had always evinced much deference
to Sumner's scholarly and social attributes, and had
treated him with a consideration which the latter
not impossibly misconstrued. The evidence is clear
and of record that, when unexpectedly called to take
charge of the State Department, Mr. Fish was solic
itous as to Sumner's feeling towards him, and anx
ious to assure himself of the latter's co-operation
and even guidance. Meanwhile, though wholly un
conscious of the fact, Mr. Sumner could not help
regarding Mr. Fish as a tyro, and was not disposed
to credit him with any very clearly defined ideas of
his own. He assumed, as matter of course, that
at last the shaping of the foreign policy of the coun
try would by seniority devolve upon him. The ap
pointment of Mr. Motley to succeed Mr. Reverdy
Johnson in the English mission undoubtedly con-
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 73
firmed him in this opinion. Mr. Motley was his
appointee. That the new plenipotentiary regarded
himself as such at once became apparent ; for, im
mediately after his confirmation, he prepared a me
moir suggestive of the instructions to be given him.
The Johnson-Clarendon convention had just been
rejected ; the course now to be pursued was under
advisement; Mr. Sumner's recent speech was still
matter of general discussion. The new President
was understood to have no very clearly defined
ideas on the subject ; it was assumed that Mr. Fish
was equally susceptible to direction. Mr. Motley,
therefore, looked to Mr. Sumner for inspiration. In
his memorandum he sucra-ested that it was not ad-
o o
visable at present to attempt any renewal of nego
tiations. And then he fell back on the proclamation
of May, 1 86 1 ; proceeding to dilate on that wrong
committed by Great Britain, — a wrong so deeply
felt by the American people ! This sense of wrong
had now been declared gravely, solemnly, without
passion ; and the sense of it was not to be expunged
by a mere money payment to reimburse a few capt
ures and conflagrations at sea. And here, for the
present, he proposed to let the matter rest. A time
might come when Great Britain would see her fault,
and be disposed to confess it. Reparation of some
sort would then naturally follow ; but, meanwhile,
it was not for the United States to press the matter
further.
Distinct indications of a divergence of opinion as
to the course to be pursued were at once apparent.
The President, acting as yet under the influence of
Mr. Sumner, wished Mr. Motley to proceed forth
with to his post; Mr. Fish inclined to delay his go-
74 Before and After the Treaty of Washington :
ing. Meanwhile the Secretary was at work on the
new minister's letter of instructions ; and in them
he clearly did not draw his inspiration from the
Motley memoir.* On the contrary, referring to the
fate of the Johnson-Clarendon convention in the
Senate, he proceeded to say that, because of this
action, the government of the United States did not
abandon " the hope of an early, satisfactory and
friendly settlement of the questions depending be
tween the two governments." The suspension of
negotiations, he added, would, the President hoped,
be regarded by Her Majesty's government, as it
was by him, "as wholly in the interest, and solely
with a view, to an early and friendly settlement."
The Secretary then went on to open the way to
such a settlement by defining, in terms presently to
be referred to, the views of the President on the
effect to be ascribed to the Queen's proclamation
of May, 1 86 1.
At this point, the reason became apparent why
Mr. Fish was in no haste to have the newly ap
pointed minister proceed at once to London. The
Secretary was in a dilemma. The rule of action he
was about to lay down as that which should have
guided the British government in 1861 must con
trol the United States in 1869. That was obvious;
but, in 1869, the United States was itself the in-
* Subsequently, in September, 1877, Grant said, when at Edin
burgh—" Mr. Motley had to be instructed. The instructions were
prepared very carefully, and after Governor Fish and I had gone over
them for the last time I wrote an addendum charging him that above
all things he should handle the subject of the Alabama claims with
the greatest delicacy. Mr. Motley, instead of obeying his implicit
instructions, deliberately fell in line with Sumner and thus added in
sult to the previous injury."
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 75
terested observer of an insurrection in the neigh
boring island of Cuba ; and, moreover, the new
President was not backward in expressing the warm
sympathy he felt for the insurgents against Spanish
colonial misrule. He wished also to forward their
cause. That wish would find natural expression in
a recognition of belligerent rights. Gen. Grant
was a man of decided mind ; he was very persist
ent ; his ways were military ; and, as to principles
of international law, his knowledge of them can
hardly be said to have been so much limited as to
tally wanting. He inclined strongly to a policy of
territorial expansion ; but his views were in the di
rection of the tropics, — the Antilles and Mexico,—
rather than towards Canada and the North. As
the event, however, showed, once his mind was
made up and his feelings enlisted, it was not possi
ble to divert him from his end. In the matter of
foreign policy, the course he now had in mind,
though neither of the two at first realized the fact,
involved of necessity and from the outset a struggle
with Mr. Sumner ; and, to one who knew the men,
appreciating their characteristics and understanding
their methods, it was easy to foresee that the strug
gle would be as bitter as it was prolonged and un
relenting.
o
As different in their mental attributes as in
their physical appearance, while Mr. Sumner was,
intellectually, morally and physically, much the
finer and more imposing human product, Grant had
counterbalancing qualities which made him, in cer
tain fields, the more formidable opponent. With
immense will, he was taciturn ; Sumner, on the con
trary, in no way deficient in will, was a man of many
76 Before and After the Treaty of Washington :
words, — a rhetorician. In action and among men,
Grant's self-control was perfect, — amounting to
complete apparent imperturbability. Unassuming,
singularly devoid of self-consciousness, in presence
of an emergency his blood never seemed to quicken,
his face became only the more set, tenacity personi
fied ; whereas Sumner, — when morally excited, the
rush of his words, his deep tremulous utterance and
the light in his eye, did not impart conviction or in
spire respect. Doubts would suggest themselves to
the unsympathetic, or only partially sympathetic,
listener whether the man was of altogether balanced
mind. At such times, Mr. Sumner did not appreciate
the force of language, or, indeed, know what he said ;
and, quite unconsciously on his part, he assumed an
attitude of moral superiority and intellectual certainty,
in no way compatible with a proper appreciation of
the equality of others. In the mind of a man like
Grant, these peculiarities excited obstinacy, anger
and contempt. Thus, an agitator and exponent of
ideas, Mr. Sumner might and did stimulate masses,
but he was never, man or boy, a leader among
equals. Moreover, as one of his truest friends and
warmest admirers said of him, he was prone to re
gard difference of opinion as a moral delinquency.*
Grant, on the contrary, not retentive of enmities, re
gardless of consistency, and of coarse moral as well
as physical fibre, moved towards his ends with a
stubborn persistency which carried others along
with him, and against which a perfervid, rhetorical
opposition was apt to prove unavailing.
* " A man who did not believe there was another side to the question,
who would treat difference of opinion almost as moral delinquency."
Geo. William Curtis, in his oration on Charles Sumner ; Orations
and Addresses, vol. iii, p. 230.
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 77
Mr. Fish stood between the two. So far as ques
tions of foreign policy and problems of international
law were concerned, though, as the result unmis
takably showed, well grounded in fundamental prin
ciples and with a grasp of general conditions at
once firm and correct, there is no evidence that, be
fore his quite unexpected summons to the Depart
ment of State, the new Secretary had felt called
upon to form definite conclusions. By nature cau
tious and conservative, not an imaginative man,
having passed his whole life in a New York social
and commercial environment, he would have in
clined to proceed slowly in any path of expansion,
most of all in one heading towards the tropics, and
an admixture of half-breeds. So far as Great Brit
ain was concerned, he would, on the other hand, be
disposed to effect, if he could, an amicable, business
like settlement on rational terms. From the begin
ning he was inclined to think Mr. Sumner had in his
speech gone too far, — that the positions he had
taken were not altogether tenable. The British
proclamation of May, 1861, he regarded as a
" grievous wrong" under all the circumstances of
the case, but he assented to the position of Lord
Stanley that issuing it was within the strict right
of the neutral, and the question of time was one of
judgment. As he wrote to a friend in May, 1869,
four weeks after Mr. Sumner had enunciated very
different views in his Senate speech, the proclama
tion could be made subject of complaint only as
leading in its execution and enforcement to the fit
ting out of \heAlabama, &c., and the moral sup
port given in England to the rebel cause. " Sum-
ner's speech was able and eloquent, and perhaps
78 Before and After the Treaty of Washington:
not without a good effect. * * * Although the
only speech made in the dejbate, it was not the ar
gument of all who agreed in the rejection of the
treaty, and we cannot stand upon it in all its points."
Within a week of the rejection of the Johnson-
Clarendon convention he wrote to another friend,
" Whenever negotiations are resumed, the atmos
phere and the surroundings of this side of the water
are more favorable to a proper solution of the ques
tion than the dinner-tables and the public banquet-
tings of England."
Thus from the very commencement there was an
essential divergence of view between the Secretary
of State and the Senator from Massachusetts, as
well as between the latter and the President. As
between Charles Sumner and Ulysses S. Grant, past
friendly relations, similar social connections and
common tastes would decidedly have drawn Mr.
Fish towards the former ; but, by nature loyal, he
was distinctly repelled by Mr. Sumner's demeanor.
I have dwelt on these personal factors, and di
vergences of view and aim, for they must be kept
constantly in mind in considering what was now to
occur. They account for much otherwise quite inex
plicable. In history as a whole, — the inexhaustible
story of man's development from what he once was
to what he now is, — the individual as a factor is so
far minimized that the most considerable unit might
probably have been left out of the account, and yet
the result be in no material respect other than it is.
Exceptional forces and individual traits counterbal
ance each other, tending always to average results.
But with episodes it is not so. In them the individ
ual has free play ; and, accordingly, the personal
American Civil War and War in tJie Transvaal. 79
factor counts. The Treaty of Washington was an
episode. In dealing with the conditions which led
up to that treaty the minds of Charles Sumner and
Hamilton Fish naturally moved on different lines ;
while it so chanced that the likes and dislikes, the
objectives, surroundings and methods of Ulysses S.
Grant, — disturbing factors, — • entered largely into
the result.
IV
In the years 1869 and 1870, as indeed through
out his public life, Charles Sumner was intent on
the African, and questions of human right ; while,
in the matter of territorial expansion, looking
vaguely to Canada and a Greater American policy, he
would instinctively have been opposed to any move
ment in the direction of the tropics. President
Grant, on the contrary, from the beginning of his
first presidential term, was bent on early acquisi
tions in the West Indies, and disposed to adopt a
summary tone towards Spain. As respects Great
Britain, his attitude, one of comparative indifference,
admitted of almost indefinite shaping. Mr. Fish,
new, and not comfortable, in his unsolicited posi
tion, was inclined to be influenced, — almost to be
led, by Sumner ; but he at the same time looked to
Grant as the head of the government, in which he
himself held the place of precedence, and was dis
posed to give to his chief a thoroughly loyal sup
port. New in their positions, and new to each other,
they were all about to find their bearings. Under
such circumstances, a stranger in the State Depart
ment and almost a novice on questions of interna-
So Before and After tJie Treaty of Washington :
tional law, the new Secretary seems in some degree
to have turned to Caleb Cifshing ; nor could he
among men then available at Washington have
found a more competent or tactful adviser. Of de
cided parts, with good attainments and remarkable
powers of acquisition, Caleb dishing was a man of
large experience, much human insight, and, while
given to manipulation, he was not hampered either
in council or in action by any excess of moral sensi
bility. He understood the situation ; and he under
stood Mr. Sumner.
In the matter of the Queen's proclamation of
May, 1861, and the concession of belligerent rights,
it was thus a case of alternatives, — the rule of Brit
ish accountability to be laid down for the new ad
ministration must not stand in the way of a more
than possible line of aggressive action towards
Spain. That the instructions now prepared for
Mr. Motley were more rational than the positions
assumed by Mr. Sumner four weeks before must be
admitted ; they were also more in accordance with
recognized principles of international law. In his
Senate speech Mr. Sumner had contended that, be
cause of the proclamation, the liability of Great Britain
must be fixed at amounts scarcely calculable in
money, — a damage "immense and infinite, — " a mas
sive grievance," all dependent on " this extraordinary
manifesto," the " ill-omened," the " fatal " proclama
tion which "had opened the floodgates to infinite
woes." Mr. Fish, with the Cuba situation obviously
in mind, declared, on the contrary, that the President
recognized " the right of every power, when a civil
conflict has arisen in another state, and has attained a
sufficient complexity, magnitude and completeness,
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 81
to define its own relations and those of its citizens
and subjects toward the parties to the conflict, so far
as their rights and interests are necessarily affected
by the conflict." Then followed some saving clauses,
carefully framed ; but, as already foreshadowed in
Mr. Fish's correspondence, the precipitate character
of the "unfriendly" proclamation was dwelt upon
only as showing " the beginning and the animus of
that course of conduct which resulted so disastrously
to the United States." In the original draft, these
instructions had been even more explicit on this
point ; and, for that reason, had led to a charac
teristic remonstrance on the part of Mr. Sumner.
Having early got some inkling of their character he
at once went to the State Department, and there,
speaking to the Assistant Secretary in a loud voice,
tremulous and vibrating with excitement, he had
exclaimed — " Is it the purpose of this Administra
tion to sacrifice me, — me a Senator from Massachu
setts ? " — and later he wrote to the Secretary himself
declaring his dissent "from the course proposed,"
on the ground that " as chairman of the Senate
Committee I ought not in any way to be a party to
a statement which abandons or enfeebles any of the
just grounds of my country as already expounded
by Seward, Adams, and myself." To this more
than merely implied threat, Mr. Fish had contented
himself by replying that whether the modifications
were of greater or of less significance, they could
"hardly be of sufficient importance to break up an
effort at negotiation, or to break down an Admin
istration" Mr. Gushing here intervened, and his
skilful hand temporarily adjusted the difficulty. The
adjustment was, however, only temporary. The
82 Before and After the Treaty of Washington :
inevitable could not be averted. Coming events
already cast their shadow before.
To revive in detail the painful Motley imbroglio
of 1870 is not necessary for present purposes. Suf
fice it to say that, when he reached England, Mr.
Motley was, apparently, quite unable to clear his
mind of what might, perhaps, not inaptly be de
scribed as the Proclamation Legend ; and, both in
his official interviews with the British Foreign Sec
retary and in social talk, he failed to follow, and ap
parently did not grasp, the spirit of his instructions.
Confessing to a " despondent feeling " as to the
"possibility of the two nations ever understanding
each other or looking into each other's hearts," in
his first interview with Lord Clarendon he fell heavily
back on the ubiquitous and everlasting proclamation,
as the " fountain head of the disasters which had been
caused to the American people, both individually
and collectively." Historically untrue and diplo
matically injudicious, this tone and stand evinced, on
the part of Mr. Motley, an inability to see things
in connection with his mission otherwise than as
seen by Mr. Sumner. His misapprehension of
the objects his official superior had in view was
obvious and complete. As it was almost imme
diately decided that, so far as the settlement of out
standing difficulties between the two nations was
concerned, any future negotiations should be con
ducted in Washington, Mr. Motley ceased at this
point to be a considerable factor in the course of
events.
In the mean time an extremely adroit, though
unofficial, intermediary had appeared on the stage.
His presence almost immediately made itself felt.
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 83
Born in Scotland in 1820, and emigrating with his
parents to America at the age of sixteen, Sir John
Rose, or Mr. Rose as he still was in 1869, had been
for a number of years prominent in Canadian public
life. A natural diplomat of a high order, he was at
this time acting as British commissioner on the
joint tribunal provided by the treaty of 1863 to ar
bitrate the claims of the Hudson's Bay and Puget
Sound Companies. Mr. Caleb dishing was of
counsel in that business, and relations of a friendly
nature grew up between him and the British arbi
trator. Whether already privately authorized so to
do or not, Mr. Rose, who was very solicitous of an
arrangement between the two nations, skilfully in
stilled into Mr. dishing- a belief that he, Mr. Rose,
might be of use in the delicate work of reopening
negotiations on new lines. Accordingly on the
26th of June, — only eight weeks after the rejection
of the Johnson-Clarendon convention, and sixteen
days after Mr. Motley's despondent interview with
Lord Clarendon just referred to, — Mr. dishing,
then in Washington, wrote to Mr. Rose, in Ottawa.
Referring to previous letters between them, he now
told him that he had that day seen Secretary Fish,
and had arranged for Mr. Rose to meet him. " I
am," he wrote, " not sanguine of immediate conclu
sion of such a treaty as either you or I might de
sire. But I think the time has arrived to commence^
trusting that discretion, patience and good will on
both sides may eventuate, in this important matter,
satisfactorily to the two governments." Accord-
* In this letter Mr. Gushing significantly went on to say — " In view
of the disposition which the Senate of the United States has recently
shown to assume more than its due, or at least than its usual part,
84 Before and After the Treaty of Washington :
ingly, on the 8th of July, Mr. Rose called on the
Secretary in Washington. The first of the inter
views which led up to the Treaty of Washington
two years later took place next day at Mr. Fish's
dinner table. The basis of a settlement was then
discussed, and that subsequently reached outlined
by Mr. Fish, who laid especial emphasis on the
necessity of <r some kind expression of regret " on
the part of Great Britain over the course pursued
in the Civil War. The two even went so far as to
consider the details of negotiation. The expedi
ency of a special commission to dispose of the mat
ter ^was discussed, and the names of the Duke of
Argyll and John Bright were considered in connec
tion therewith.
Immediately after this interview Mr. Rose went to
England. His own official and personal relations
with men high in influence were close ; and, more
over, another personage of rapidly growing con
sequence in English ministerial circles was now at
work laboring earnestly and assiduously to promote
an adjustment. In 1869 William E. Forster was
fast rising into the first rank among English public
men. President of the Privy Council in Mr. Glad
stone's first ministry, he was at this juncture acting
as Minister of Education. Nine years later, in the
second Gladstone ministry, he was to occupy the
crucial position of Secretary for Ireland. Always,
from his first entrance into public life in 1861, an
in the determination of international questions, you will appreciate
the unreadiness of the Executive, at the present time, to take upon
itself any spontaneous or doubtful ventures, especially on the side
of England." The reference was, of course, to Mr. Sumner, and
pointed to an already developing source of trouble. Grant's first
presidential term was yet in its fourth month only.
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 85
earnest, outspoken, consistent and insistent friend
of democratic United States, — during the Civil
War the one in that small group of friends held by
Mr. Adams in "most esteem," — Mr. Forster was
now strenous in his advocacy of a broad settlement
of the issues arising out of the Rebellion, and the
honest admission by Great Britain of the ill-con
sidered policy then pursued. His name also had
been discussed by Mr. Fish and Mr. Rose as one of
the proposed special mission.
Within less than two months, therefore, of the
rejection of the Johnson-Clarendon convention, the
Treaty of Washington was in the air ; and, curiously
enough, at the very time Mr. Motley in London
was confessing to Lord Clarendon his " despondent
feeling" in view of the " path surrounded by per
ils," and talking of " grave and disastrous misun
derstandings and cruel wars," Secretary Fish and
Mr. Rose, comfortably seated at a dinner table in
Washington, were quietly paving the way to a
complete understanding. Nothing more occurred
during that summer; but in the course of it Mr.
Fish thus expressed his views in a letter to a cor
respondent, — an expression at this early date to
which subsequent events lent much significance :—
" The two English-speaking progressive liberal
Governments of the world should not, must not, be
divided — better let this question rest for some
years even (if that be necessary) than risk failure
in another attempt at settlement. I do not say this
because I wish to postpone a settlement — on the
contrary, I should esteem it the greatest glory, and
greatest happiness of my life, if it could be settled
while I remain in official position ; and I should
86 Before and After the Treaty of Washijigton :
esteem it the greatest benefit to my country to
bring it to an early settlement. * * * I want
to have the question settled. I would not, if I could,
impose any humiliating condition on Great Britain.
I would not be a party to anything that proposes
to ' threaten ' her. I believe that she is great
enough to be just ; and I trust that she is wise
enough to maintain her own greatness. No great
ness is inconsistent with some errors. Mr. Bright
thinks she was drawn into errors — so do we. If
she can be brought to think so, it will not be neces
sary for her to say so ; — at least not to say it very
loudly. It may be said by a definition of what shall
be Maritime International Law in the future, and a
few kind words. She will want in the future what
we have claimed. Thus she will be benefited—
we satisfied. "/ Written in the early days of Sep
tember, 1870, this letter set forth clearly the posi
tion of Mr. Fish ; it also correctly foreshadowed the
course of the diplomacy which had already been
entered upon.
During the autumn of 1869 the Alabama claims,
and the unsatisfactory relations of the country with
Great Britain, were discussed at more than one
Cabinet meeting in Washington. At this time,
while the Secretary of State professed himself as
ready to negotiate whenever England came forward
with a fairly satisfactory proposition, the President
favored a policy of delay. Presently, Mr. Rose was
again heard from. The letter he now wrote has since
often been referred to and much commented upon,
though it was over twenty years before its author
ship was revealed. In it he said, — " I have had
conversations in more than one quarter, — which
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 87
you will readily understand without my naming
them, and have conveyed my oiun belief, that a
kindly word, or an expression of regret, such as
would not involve an acknowledgment of wrong,
was likely to be more potential than the most irre
fragable reasoning on principles of international
law." Mr. Rose then went on to touch upon a
very delicate topic, — Mr. Motley's general London
presentation of his country's attitude. " Is your
representative here," he added, " a gentleman of
the most conciliatory spirit? * Does he not
—perhaps naturally — let the fear of imitating his
predecessor influence his course so as to make his
initiative hardly as much characterized by consider
ation for the sensibilities of the people of this coun
try, as of his own. I think I understood
you to say, that you thought negotiations would
be more like to be attended with satisfactory re
sults, if they were transferred to, and were con
cluded at, Washington ; because you could from
time to time communicate confidentially with lead
ing Senators, and know how far you could carry
that body with you. * But again is your
representative of that mind ? — and how is it to be
brought about ? By a new, or a special envoy — as
you spoke of — or quietly through Mr. Thornton ?
If I am right in my impression that you
would prefer Washington and a new man, and you
think it worth while to enable me to repeat that
suggestion as one from myself in the proper quarter,
a line from you — or if you prefer it, a word by the
cable, will enable me to do so."
Eight days later, on the nth of the same month,
Mr. Rose again wrote to Mr. Fish, calling his at-
88 Before and After the Treaty of Washington :
tention to the speech of Mr. Gladstone at the Guild
hall, which, he said, " hardly conveys the impres
sion his tone conveyed with reference to United
States affairs. There was an earnest tone of friend
ship that is hardly reproduced."
At the time these letters reached Mr. Fish the
relations between him and Mr. Sumner were close
and still friendly. The Secretary spoke to the
Senator freely of Mr. Rose's visits, and consulted
with him over every step taken. Knowing that
Mr. Sumner and Mr. Motley were constantly inter
changing" letters, he took occasion to advise Mr.
Sumner of the intimations which had thus reached
him, giving, of course, no names, but saying simply
that they were from a reliable quarter. The well-
meant hint was more than disregarded, Mr. Sumner
contenting himself with contemptuous references to
the once celebrated McCracken episode. Years
afterwards, in the same spirit, Mr. Motley's biog
rapher sneeringly referred to the still unnamed
writer of the Rose letters as " a faithless friend, a
disguised enemy, a secret emissary or an injudicious
alarmist." *
The reply of Mr. Fish to the letters of Mr. Rose
revealed the difficulties of the Secretary's position.
The individuality of Mr. Sumner made itself felt at
every point. In London, Mr. Motley reflected the
views of the chairman of the Senate Committee on
Foreign Affairs rather than those of the Secretary
of State ; in Washington, the personal relations of
Mr. Sumner with the British Minister were such as
to render the latter undesirable at least as a me-
* O. W. Holmes, Memoir of John Lothrop Motley (1879), pp.
178-9.
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 89
dium of negotiation. Referring first to his intima
tions concerning Mr. Motley, Mr. Fish replied to
Mr. Rose as follows :—
" Your questions respecting our Minister, I fear
may have been justified by some indiscretion of ex
pression, or of manner, but I hope only indiscre
tions of that nature. Intimations of such had
reached me. I have reason to hope that if there
have been such manifestations they may not recur.
Whatever there may have appeared, I cannot doubt
his desire to aid in bringing the two Governments
into perfect accord. I have the highest
regard for Mr. Thornton, and find him in all my in
tercourse, courteous, frank, and true. A gentle
man with whom I deal and treat with the most un
reserved confidence. He had, however, given
offence to Mr. Sumner (chairman of the Senate
Committee on Foreign Relations), whose position
with reference to any future negotiation you un
derstand. I chance to know that Mr. Sumner feels
deeply aggrieved by some things which Mr. Thorn
ton has written home, and although he would not
consciously allow a personal grief of that nature to
prejudice his action in an official intercourse with
the representative of a State, he might uncon
sciously be led to criticism unfavorable to positions
which would be viewed differently, if occupied by
some other person. * * * I am very decidedly
of opinion that whenever negotiations are to be re
newed, they would be more likely to result favor
ably here than in London. I have so instructed
Mr. Motley to say, if he be questioned on the sub-
ject."
Such was the posture of affairs at the close of the
90 Before and After the Treaty of Washington :
year 1869. Events now moved rapidly, and the
general situation became more and more compli
cated. In Europe, the war-clouds which preceded
the Franco-Prussian storm-burst of 1870 were
gathering ; in America, President Grant was, per
sistently as earnestly, pressing his schemes of West
Indian annexation. In London, Mr. Rose was in
formally sounding the members of the government
to ascertain how far they were willing to go ; in
Washington, Mr. Thornton was pressing the Sec
retary " with much earnestness to give him an inti
mation of what would be accepted " by the United
States. The outbreak of hostilities between France
and Germany six months later brought matters, so
far as Great Britain was concerned, fairly to a crisis.
In presence of serious continental complications,—
in imminent danger of being drawn into the vortex
of conflict, — Great Britain found itself face to face
with the Alabama precedents. Like " blood-bol-
ter'd " Banquo, they would not down. The posi
tion was one not likely to escape the keen eye of
Prince Bismarck. England's hands were tied. In
ternationally, she was obviously a negligible quan
tity. The principles laid down and precedents es
tablished only six years before were patent, — fresh
in the minds of all. Her Majesty's government
remembered them ; Prince Bismarck was advised
of them ; each was well aware of the other's knowl
edge. The Gladstone ministry were accordingly
in an extraordinarily receptive mental condition.
Such being the state of affairs in Europe, on this
side of the Atlantic the situation complicated itself
no less rapidly. It was in the early days of Janu
ary that President Grant dropped in one evening
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 91
at Mr. Sumner's house, while the latter was at din
ner with some friends, and sought to enlist the in
fluence of the chairman of the " Senate Judiciary
Committee," as he would designate him, in support
of the scheme for the annexation of San Domingo.
What followed is familiar history. During the
immediately ensuing months there took place a
complete division between the two men. They
thereafter became not only politically opposed, but
bitter personal enemies.
To all outward appearances during those months
no advance whatever was being made towards a
British adjustment ; but, in point of fact, both time
and conditions were now ripe for it. In the early
days of September, 1870, the Imperial government
of France collapsed at Sedan; and on the 13th of
that month M. Thiers arrived in London soliciting
on behalf of the new French republic the aid and
good offices of Great Britain. His mission was, of
course, fruitless ; but, none the less, it could not
but emphasize the difficulty of England s position.
If it failed so to do, a forcible reminder from Amer
ica was imminent, and followed almost immediately.
In December, with Paris blockaded by the Prus
sians, France was brought face to face with dismem
berment. The general European situation was
from an English point of view disquieting in the
extreme. At just this juncture, within one week
of the day on which his Parliament called on the
Prussian King to become Emperor of Germany,
and the delegate government, to avoid a German
army operating in the heart of France, removed its
sittings from Tours to Bordeaux, — at just this
juncture (December 5th) President Grant took oc-
92 Before and After the Treaty of Washington :
casion to incorporate the following passage into his
annual message:—
" I regret to say that no conclusion has been
reached for the adjustment of the claims against
Great Britain growing out of the course adopted
by that Government during the rebellion. The
cabinet of London, so far as its views have been
expressed, does not appear to be willing to concede
that Her Majesty's Government was guilty of any
negligence, or did or permitted any act during the
war by which the United States has just cause of
complaint. Our firm and unalterable convictions
are directly the reverse. I therefore recommend
to Congress to authorize the appointment of a com
mission to take proof of the amount and the owner
ship of these several claims, on notice to the repre
sentative of Her Majesty at Washington, and that
authority be given for the settlement of these claims
by the United States, so that the Government shall
have the ownership of the private claims, as well as
the responsible control of all the demands against
Great Britain. It can not be necessary to add that
whenever Her Majesty's Government shall enter
tain a desire for a full and friendly adjustment of
these claims the United States will enter upon their
consideration with an earnest desire for a conclusion
consistent with the honor and dignity of both na-
.tions."
The hint thus forcibly given was not lost in Lon
don. The educational process was now complete.
The message, or that portion of it which most in
terested the British public, appeared in the London
journals of December 6th, and was widely com
mented upon. Exactly five weeks later, on the 9th
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 93
of January, 1871, Mr. Rose was again in Washing
ton. Coming ostensibly on business relating to the
Dominion of Canada, he was in reality now at last
empowered to open negotiations looking to an im
mediate settlement. The very evening of the day
he arrived Mr. Rose dined with Mr. Fish. The
after-dinner talk between the two, lasting some five
or six hours, resulted in a confidential memoran
dum. More carefully formulated by Mr. Rose the
following day, this paper reached Mr. Fish on the
nth of January. He expressed himself, on ac
knowledging its receipt, as inspired with hope.
Hamilton Fish was neither an ambitious nor an
imaginative man. Though he held the position of
Secretary of State during both of the Grant admin
istrations, he did so with a genuine and well-under
stood reluctance, and was always contemplating
an early retirement. At this juncture, however,
there can be no doubt his ambition was fired.
That which a year before he had pronounced as,
among things possible, " the greatest glory and
the greatest happiness of his life " was within his
reach. He was to be the official medium through
which a settlement of the questions between " the
two English-speaking, progressive-liberal " coun
tries was to be effected. That was to be his mon
ument. To a certain extent, also, conditions fa
vored him. Mr. Sumner and his Senate speech
on the Johnson-Clarendon convention were the
great obstacles in the way. For, as Mr. Fish had
himself expressed it a year previous, — " The elo
quence, and the display of learning and of research
in [that) speech, and, — perhaps above all, — the
gratification of the laudable pride of a people in be-
94 Before and After the Treaty of Washington :
ing told of the magnitude of wealth in reserve for
them in the way of damages tlue from a wealthy
debtor, captivated some, and deluded more." Of
this wide-spread popular feeling, reinforced by the
anti-British and Fenian sentiment then very preva
lent, account had to be taken. But, on the other
hand, Mr. Simmer's lukewarmness as respects any
settlement at that time, much more his possible op
position to one originating with the State Depart
ment, indirectly forwarded that result. The Presi
dent and the Massachusetts Senator were now in
open conflict over the former's policy of West Ind
ian expansion ; and in that struggle Secretary Fish
had most properly, if he remained in office, taken
sides with his official head. The Motley imbroglio
had followed. With the most friendly feeling towards
Mr. Motley personally, and sincerely desirous of
avoiding so far as possible any difficulty with Mr.
Sumner, Mr. Fish's expressed wish was to continue
Mr. Motley in his position, taking from him all part
in the proposed negotiation and giving him implicit
instructions in no way to refer to it, or seek to in
fluence it. He was practically to be reduced to a
functional representative. To this the President
would not assent. He insisted that Mr. Motley
represented Mr. Sumner more than he did the Ad
ministration, and he declared in a Cabinet meeting,
at which the matter was discussed, that he would
" not allow Sumner to ride over" him. The Sec
retary continued to plead and urge, but in vain.
The President was implacable. It was then sug
gested that Mr. Sumner should himself be nomi
nated to succeed Motley, and Gen. Butler and Mr.
Cameron called on the Secretary to advocate this
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 95
solution of the difficulty. They pronounced Sum-
ner impractical and arrogant, and urged that he
should be got out of the way by any practicable
method. This suggestion also was discussed at a
Cabinet meeting, and the President expressed a
willingness to make the nomination on condition
that Sumner would resign from the Senate ; but
he also intimated a grim determination to remove
him from his new office as soon as he had been
confirmed in it. At last Mr. Fish was compelled to
yield ; and, under the President's implicit direction,
he wrote to Mr. Motley a private letter, couched in
the most friendly language, in which he intimated
as clearly as he could that so doing was most pain
ful to him, but he must ask for a resignation. The
whole transaction has since been exhaustively dis
cussed, and it is unnecessary to revive it. It is
sufficient to say that what was then done, was done
by Gen. Grant's imperative order, and solely be
cause of Mr. Motley's intimate personal relations
with Mr. Sumner, and the latter's opposition to the
President's Dominican policy. The urgent and re
peated remonstrances of the Secretary of State
were of no avail. A victim of political mischance,
Mr. Motley was thus doomed to illustrate the truth
of Hamlet's remark as to the danger incurred by
him of lesser weight who chances
" Between the pass and fell incensed points
Of mighty opposites."
It may be said, however, that, in view of the close
personal relations existing between Mr. Sumner
and Mr. Motley, and their constant interchange of
letters of the most confidential character, it is not
96 Before and After the Treaty of Washington :
easy to see how the latter could have been allowed
to remain at London, the supposed representative
of the government, with the Massachusetts Senator
in open opposition to the Administration. In view
of the renewal of active negotiations, the estrange
ment of the one apparently necessitated the dis
placement of the other.
The anger of the President towards the Massa
chusetts Senator now knew no bounds ; for those
about the White House, holding there confidential
relations, openly asserted that Mr. Sumner had
more than intimated that that he, Grant, was intox
icated when, early in January, 1870, he had made
his memorable after-dinner call at his, the Senator's,
house. Mr. Motley refused to resign. His re
moval was thereupon ordered. This was delayed
as long as possible by Mr. Fish, as he expected
then himself shortly to retire, and was more than
willing to leave the final act of displacement to his
successor. At the last moment he was, however,
prevailed upon to continue in office, sorely against
his own wishes; and, what then, as respects the
English mission, occurred, is matter of record.
That the patience of the Secretary had been sorely
tried during the intervening time, does not admit of
question. To this subject, and the probable cause
of his irritation, I shall have occasion to refer pres
ently. Unfortunately, as is apt to be the case with
those of Netherlandish blood, though slow to wrath,
Mr. Fish's anger, once aroused, was neither easily
appeased nor kept within conventional bounds; and
now it extended beyond its immediate cause. He
felt aggrieved over the course pursued by Mr. Mot
ley. In it he saw no regard for the difficulties of
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 97
the position in which he himself stood, and he was
especially provoked by the minister's voluminous
record of the circumstances attending his displace
ment, placed by him on the files of the Department,
and entitled "End of Mission." Accordingly, Mr.
Fish's long-contained anger found expression in
the well-known letter, addressed to Mr. Moran,
secretary of the Legation at London, and then act
ing as charg^ des affaires. This letter, in a first
draught, was read by the Secretary to the Presi
dent, Vice- President Colfax, and Mr. Conkling be
fore it was despatched; and, while the last named
gave to it his approval, the President not only de
clined to allow certain alterations suggested by Mr.
Colfax to be made, but expressed his wish that not
a word in the paper be changed.
Immaterial as all this may at first seem, it had a
close and important bearing on the negotiations pre
liminary to the Treaty of Washington, now fairly
initiated. The cabinet had, during the summer of
1870, been divided over the Dominican issue. The
Attorney-General, E. R. Hoar, had opposed the
ratification of the treaty, and the President there
upon, and for that reason, called for his resigna
tion. In advising the Secretary of State of this
fact, Gen. Grant took occasion to express his sense
of the support Mr. Fish had given the measure, and
to intimate his sense of obligation therefor. He
probably felt this the more, as he was not un
aware that Mr. Fish had taken the course he did
solely from a sense of loyalty, and in opposition
to his own better judgment. Mr. Fish looked upon
the treaty as a measure of policy inaugurated by
the head of the Administration; and, after the pol-
98 Before and After the Treaty of Washington :
icy involved was fairly entered upon, did what he
properly could to forward it. • This, also, notwith
standing the fact that the treaty had been most irregu
larly negotiated in derogation of the Department of
State, and that it was in charge of persons whose
standinghadin no degree increased public confidence.
But such loyalty of action appealed strongly to Gen
eral Grant, and, in return for it, he stood ready to
approve any policy towards Great Britain the Secre
tary might see fit to recommend. If, moreover, such
a policy implied of necessity a conflict with Mr. Sum-
ner, it would, for that very reason, be only the more
acceptable. The President thus became a tower
of strength in the proposed negotiation.
Still while, on the whole, the conditions contrib
uting to success seemed to predominate, the fate of
the Johnson-Clarendon convention had to be borne
in mind. Mr. Sumner was chairman of the Senate
Committee on Foreign Relations. To defeat the
result of a negotiation, it was necessary to control
but a third of the Senate ; and his influence in that
body had recently been emphasized by the rejection
of the Dominican treaty, in favor of which the Pres
ident had made use of every form of argument and
inducement within the power of an Executive to
employ. So, after the proposal of Sir John Rose
had been discussed by the Secretary with Senator
Conkling and Gen. Schenck, the newly designated
minister to England, it was agreed that Mr. Fish
should seek an interview with the Massachusetts
Senator, and; by a great show of consideration, see
if he could not be induced to look favorably on the
scheme.
What ensued was not only historically interest-
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 99
ing, but to the last degree characteristic; it was,
moreover, altogether unprecedented. The Secre
tary of State actually sounded the way to an inter
view with the chairman of a Senate Committee
through another member of that committee, — a spe
cies of " mutual friend," — the interview in question
to take place, not at the Department of State, but
at the house of the autocratic chairman. The meet
ing was arranged accordingly ; and, on the evening
of the 1 5th of January, four days only after Sir John
Rose's arrival in Washington, Mr. Fish, with Sir
John's confidential memorandum in his pocket,
stood at Mr. Sumner's door. In the meeting that
ensued the business in hand was discussed. When
the Secretary took his leave, the memorandum of
Sir John Rose was at his request left with Mr. Sum-
ner, who promised, after fuller consideration, shortly
to return it.
Then in due time followed one of the most curi
ous incidents in diplomatic history, an incident than
which few could more strikingly illustrate the
changes which in a comparatively short space of
time take place in public opinion, and the estimate
in which things are held. Two days later, on the
T 7th of January, the Rose memorandum was re
turned to Secretary Fish by Senator Sumner with
a brief note embodying this, to those of the present
time, fairly astounding proposition : —
" First. — The idea of Sir John Rose is that all
questions and causes of irritation between England
and the United States should be removed abso
lutely and forever, that we may be at peace really,
and good neighbors, and to this end all points of
difference should be considered together. Nothing
ioo Before and After the Treaty of Washington :
could be better than this initial idea. It should be
the starting-point.
" Second. — The greatest trouble, if not peril, be
ing a constant source of anxiety and disturbance, is
from Fenianism, which is excited by the British flag
in Canada. Therefore the withdrawal of the Brit
ish flag cannot be abandoned as a condition or pre
liminary of such a settlement as is now proposed.
To make the settlement complete, the withdrawal
should be from this hemisphere, including provinces
and islands."
V
SINCE his death, nearly thirty years ago, Charles
Sumner has been made the subject of one of the
most elaborate biographies in the language. Pa
tient and painstaking to the last degree, nothing
seems to have escaped the notice of Mr. Pierce, and
the one conspicuous fault of his work is its extreme
length. It is conceived and executed on a scale
o
which assumes in the reader an interest in the sub
ject, and an indifference to toil, commensurate with
those of the author. The official biography of Lin
coln by Messrs. Nicolay and Hay is not inaptly
called by them " A History " ; and its ten solid vol
umes, averaging over 450 pages each, defy perusal.
Life simply does not suffice for literature laid out on
such a Brobdingnagian scale; all sense of propor
tion is absent from it. Yet the ten volumes of
the Lincoln include but a quarter part more read
ing matter than Mr. Pierce's four. On a rough
estimate, it is computed that these fourteen volumes
contain some two million words. The most re-
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 101
markable and highly characteristic memorandum
just quoted is expressed in about 22O;wo'r,ds ;.and
yet for it Mr. Pierce found no space m-his four.mas^
sive volumes. He refers to it indeed; showing that
he was aware of its existence ; but he does so
briefly, and somewhat lightly ; treating it as a mat
ter of small moment, and no significance.* Mr.
Storey, in his smaller biography of Sumner, makes
no reference at all to it ; apparently it failed to at
tract his notice. And yet, that memorandum is of
much historical significance. A species of electric
flash, it reveals what then was, and long had been,
in Sumner's mind. It makes intelligible what
would otherwise remain well-nigh incomprehensi
ble ; if, indeed, not altogether so.
To those of this generation, — especially to us with
the war in South Africa going on before our eyes,
—it would seem as if the first perusal of that memo
randum of January i;th must have suggested to
Mr. Fish grave doubts as to Mr. Sumner's san
ity. It reads like an attempt at clumsy ridicule.
The Secretary of State had gone to an influential
Senator in a serious spirit, suggesting a business
settlement of grave international complications ;
and he was met by a proposition which at once put
negotiation out of the question. What could the
man mean ? Apparently, he could only mean that
he did not intend to permit any adjustment to be
effected, if in his power to prevent. Such unques
tionably is the impression this paper now conveys.
Meanwhile, strange as it seems, when received it
could have occasioned Mr. Fish no special wonder ;
except, perhaps, in its wide inclusiveness, it sug-
* Pierce's Sumncr, vol. iv, pp. 480-1.
IO2 Before and After the Treaty of Washington :
gested nothing new, nothing altogether beyond the
palevM tf£?i$c>nable expectation, much less of discus-
sierrar; ;It;htf;tfugiit no novel consideration into de
bate. ' "Atm vthis statement, surprising now, meas
ures the revolution in sentiment as respects de-
pendencies- during the last thirty years.
"From 1840 to, say, 1870, the almost universal
belief of thoughtful Englishmen was that the colo-
o o
nies contributed nothing or little to the strength of
England. We were bound, it was thought, in
honor, to protect them ; the mother country should
see that her children were on the road to become
fit for independence ; the day for separation would
inevitably come ; the parting when it took place
should be on friendly terms; but the separation
would be beneficial, for both parent and children.
Even a Conservative minister spoke, or wrote, it is
said, about our l wretched colonies/ To-day the
whole tone of feeling is changed ; her colonies are,
it is constantly asserted, both the glory and the
strength of Great Britain. Not the extremest Radi
cal ventures to hint a separation." * To similar
effect another authority, an American, referring to
the same period, says — " We find England declin
ing to accept New Zealand when offered . to her
by English settlers ; treating Australia as a finan
cial burden, useful only as a dumping ground for
criminals ; discussing in Parliament whether India
be worth defending ; questioning the value of
Hong-Kong, and even refusing to be responsible
for territories in South Africa." t Even as late as
*Letter signed "An Observer," dated Oxford, August 22, 1901,
in New York Nation of September 12, 1901.
t Poultney Bigelow, The Children of the Nations, p. 332.
American Civil War and War in tJie Transvaal. 103
1 88 1, ten years after the negotiation of the Treaty
of Washington, there can be little doubt that this
feeling, — the conviction of the little worth of de
pendencies, — inspired the policy pursued towards
the South African republics by the second Glad
stone administration, after the disaster of Majuba
Hill.
In the mind of Mr Sumner, the ultimate, and, as
he in 1870 believed, not remote withdrawal of all
European flags, including, of course, the British,
from the western hemisphere, was a logical devel
opment of the Monroe doctrine. That doctrine, as
originally set forth, was merely a first enunciation,
and in its simplest form, of a principle which not
only admitted of great development but was in the
direct line of what is known as Manifest Destiny.
Secretary Seward's Alaska acquisition, bringing to
an end Russian dominion in America, created a
precedent. One European flag then disappeared
from the New World. Those of Spain and Great
Britain only remained ; and, more than twenty
years before Richard Cobden had written to Sum
ner, " I agree with you that Nature has decided
that Canada and the United States must become
one for all purposes of inter-communication.
If the people of Canada are tolerably unanimous in
wishing to sever the very slight thread which now
binds them to this country, I see no reason why, if
good faith and ordinary temper be observed, it
should not be done amicably." Charles Sumner
did not belong to the Bismarckian school of states
manship, — he was no welder in blood and iron ;
and these words of Cobden furnished the key of
the situation as it lay in his essentially doctrinaire
IO4 Before and After the Treaty of Washington i
mind. He, accordingly, looked forward with con
fidence to the incorporation of British Columbia
into the American Union ; but he always insisted
that it " should be made by peaceful annexation, by
the voluntary act of England, and with the cordial
assent of the colonists." Nor, in April, 1869, when
he delivered his National Claims, or Consequential
Damages, speech in the Senate, did this result
seem to him remote. Five months later, still borne
forward on the crest of a flooding tide, — little pres
cient of the immediate future, — he quoted before
the Massachusetts State Republican convention
Cobden's words of prophecy, and triumphantly ex
claimed — "The end is certain; nor shall we wait
long for its mighty fulfilment. In the procession of
^events it is now at hand, and he is blind who does
not discern it." *
Read with this clue in mind Mr. Sumner's utter
ances between 1869 and 1871, — including his speech
on the Johnson-Clarendon treaty, his address before
the Massachusetts Republican convention in the
following September, and his memorandum to Sec
retary Fish of sixteen months later, — become intelli
gible, and are consecutive. The claims against Great
Britain, mounting into the thousands of millions,
were formulated and advanced by him as no vulgar
pot-house score, to be itemized, and added up in the
form of a bill, and so presented for payment. On
the contrary, they were merely one item in the
statement of a " massive grievance," become matter
of gravest international debate. The settlement
was to be commensurate. Comprehensive, gran
diose even, it was to include a hemispheric flag-
* Works, vol. xiii, p. 129.
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 105
withdrawal, as well as a revision of the rules of in
ternational law. The adjustment of mere money
claims was a matter of altogether minor considera
tion ; indeed, such might well in the end become
makeweights, — mere pawns in the mighty game.
It is needless to say that the unexpected was
sure to occur in the practical unfolding of this pict
uresque programme. Indeed, a very forcible sug
gestion of the practical danger involved in it, just
so long as the average man is what he is, was
brought home to the Senator from Massachusetts
when he resumed his seat in executive session
after completing his speech on the Johnson-Claren
don treaty, — the carefully prepared opening of the
great world debate. Mr. Zachary Chandler, of
Michigan, subsequently took the floor. He was a
Senator much more closely than Mr. Sumner rep
resentative of the average American public man.
And Mr. Chandler proceeded unconsciously to
furnish an illustration of the practical outcome of
Mr. Sumner's scheme as he, the average Ameri
can, understood it. He entirely concurred in Mr.
Surnner's presentation of national injuries, conse
quential damages, and a sense of " massive griev
ance." " If Great Britain," he then went on to say,
" should meet us in a friendly spirit, acknowledge
her wrong, and cede all her interests in the Can-
adas in settlement of these claims, we will have
perpetual peace with her ; but, if she does not, we
must conquer peace. We cannot afford to have an
enemy's base so near us. It is a national necessity
that we should have the British possessions. He
hoped such a negotiation would be opened, and
that it would be a peaceful one; but, if it should not
106 Before and After the Treaty of Washington :
be, and England insists on war, then let the war be
' short, sharp, and decisive.' " * The report of
these utterances was at once transmitted by the
British minister to his government ; and, taken in
connection with Mr. Sumner's arraignment and
his presentation of consequential damages, fur
nished those composing that government, as well
as Professor Gold win Smith, with much food for
thought.
The policy proper to be pursued in the years fol
lowing 1869 rapidly assumed shape in Mr. Sum
ner's mind. He worked it out in every detail As,
shortly after, he wrote to his friend, Dr. S. G. Howe,
— " I look to annexation at the North. I wish to
have that whole zone from Newfoundland to Van
couver." It was with this result distinctly present
to him, and as a first step thereto, that he secured
the English mission for Mr. Motley. Through Mot
ley he thought to work. He, chairman of the
United States Senate Committee on Foreign Re
lations, was to mould and shape the future of a
hemisphere, — President, Secretary of State, and
Her Majesty's ministers being as clay in his potter
hands, with Motley for the deftly turning wheel.
Concerning this project he seems during the sum
mer of 1869 to have been in almost daily correspond
ence with his friend near the Court of St. James,
and in frequent conference with Secretary Fish at
Washington. On June nth, he wrote to the former
that the Secretary had the day before sounded the
British minister on the subject of Canada, the Amer
ican claims on Great Britain being too large to ad
mit of a money settlement. Sir Edward Thornton,
* See report of debate in New York Tribune, April 27, 1869.
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 107
he went on, had replied that England had no wish
to keep Canada, but could not part with it without
the consent of the population. And now the Sec
retary wanted Mr. Sumner to state the amount of
claims ; to which he had replied that he did not re
gard it as the proper time for so doing. This let
ter, it so chanced, was dated the very day after Mr.
Motley's first unfortunate interview with the British
Foreign Secretary ; and that diplomatic jeremiad
might not inaptly have concluded with a premoni
tory hint of what his mentor and guide was on the
morrow to write. Then, only four days later, — on
the 1 5th of June, — Mr. Sumner again advises his
correspondent of a dinner-table talk with men in
high official circles, and significantly adds — "All
think your position is as historic as any described
by your pen. England must listen, and at last yield.
I do not despair seeing the debate end — (i) In the
withdrawal of England from this hemisphere ; (2)
In remodeling maritime international law. Such a
consummation would place our republic at the head
of the civilized world." And, five days afterwards,
he writes in the same spirit, referring apparently to
the Secretary of State, — " With more experience at
Washington, our front would have been more per
fect." * The ''debate" referred to was, of course,
that " international debate, the greatest of our his
tory, and, before it is finished, in all probability the
greatest of all history." Thus, in June, 1869, the
chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Af
fairs was sending what were in effect unofficial in
structions to afacile national representative, couched,
be it noticed, in the very words used by the writer
*Pierce's Sumner, vol. iv, pp. 409-12.
IOS Before and After the Treaty of Washington :
eighteen months later in the memorandum just
quoted.
In one of these letters it will be observed Mr.
Sumner told Motley that Secretary Fish had that
day sounded the British minister as to a possible
cession of Canada in liquidation of our national
claims, and appeasement of our sense of " massive
grievance." The statement was correct ; and not
only at this juncture but repeatedly was a compre
hensive settlement on this basis urged on the British
government. Both President and Secretary were
thus of one mind with Mr. Sumner. In November,
1869, for instance, four months after Sir John Rose's
first visit to Washington, and at the very time he
was writing to Mr. Fish about Mr. Motley's atti
tude in London, an entire cabinet meeting was oc
cupied in a discussion of the Alabama claims. The
President then suggested the possibility of Great
Britain quitting Canada ; and he intimated his belief
that, in such case, we ought to be satisfied with the
payment for the losses actually sustained through
the Confederate commerce-destroyers, combined
with a settlement satisfactory to us of the principles
of maritime neutrality law. A few days later he ex
pressed his unwillingness at that time to adjust the
claims ; he wished them kept open until Great Brit
ain was ready to give up Canada. When certain
members of the cabinet thereupon assured him that
Great Britain looked upon Canada as a source of
weakness, quoting Lord Carlisle and Sir Edward
Thornton, the President at once replied — " If that
be so, I would be willing to settle at once." During
the following weeks, — December, 1869, and Janu-
* Pierce's Sumner ', vol. iv, p. 409.
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 109
ary, 1870, — the subject was frequently discussed be
tween Secretary Fish and the British minister. The
former urged on the latter the entire withdrawal of
Great Britain from Canada, and an immediate set
tlement of all claims on that basis. To this Sir Ed
ward Thornton replied, — " Oh, you know that we
cannot do. The Canadians find fault with me for
saying so openly as I do that we are ready to let
them go whenever they shall wish ; but they do
not desire it." In its issue of December i8th, 1869,
while these conversations, taking place in Wash
ington, were duly reported in Downing St., the
Times, probably inspired, expressed itself as fol
lows : — " Suppose the colonists met together, and,
after deliberating, came to the conclusion that they
were along way off from the United Kingdom, and
that every national motive of contiguity, similarity
of interest, and facility of administration induced
them to think it more convenient to slip into the
Union than into the Dominion, — should we oppose
their determination ? We all know that we should
not attempt to withstand it, if it were clearly and
intelligibly pronounced. * * Instead of the
Colonies being the dependencies of the Mother
Country, the Mother Country has become the De
pendency of the Colonies. We are tied while they
are loose. We are subject to a danger while they
are free." And a few months later, when the Do
minion undertook to find fault with some of the
provisions of the Treaty of Washington, the same
organ of English opinion thus frankly delivered it
self: — « From this day forth look after your own
business yourselves ; you are big enough, you are
strong enough, you are intelligent enough, and, if
no Before and After the Treaty of Washington:
there were any deficiency in any of these points, it
would be supplied by the education of self-reliance.
We are both now in a false position, and the time
has arrived when we should be relieved from it.
Take up your freedom ; your days of apprentice
ship are over." In view of such utterance as these
from the leading" organs of the mother country, Mr.
Sumner certainly had grounds for assuming that a
not unwilling hemispheric flag-withdrawal by Great
Britain was more than probable in the early future.
Returning to what took place in Washington in
March, 1870, on the eve of the Franco-Prussian
war, Secretary Fish had another long conversation
with Sir Edward Thornton which showed forcibly
how conscious those composing the English minis
try were of the falseness of Great Britain's position,
and of the imminence of danger. The Secretary
again urged on the Minister that her American
provinces were to Great Britain a menace of
danger ; and that a cause of irritation, and of
possible complication, would, especially in those
times of Fenianism, be removed, should they be
made independent. To this Mr. Thornton replied
— " It is impossible for Great Britain to inaugurate
a separation. They are willing, and even desirous,
to have one. Europe may at any moment be con
vulsed ; and, if England became involved, it would
be impossible to prevent retaliation, and the ocean
would swarm with Alabamas. England would then
be compelled to declare war." The Secretary con
soled him by agreeing that commerce-destroyers
would then be fitted out in spite of all the govern
ment might, or could, attempt to prevent them.
Up to this point the chairman of the Senate
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 1 1 1
Committee on Foreign Affairs, the President, the
Secretary of State and the members of the Cabi
net generally had gone on in happy concurrence.
They had the same end in view. But now the
cleavage between President and Senator rapidly
widened. A week only after the conversation with
Sir Edward Thornton last referred to, Gen. Grant
cautioned Mr. Fish against communicating to Mr.
Sumner any confidential or important information
received at the State Department. He had now
got to considering the Massachusetts Senator un
fair and inaccurate ; and from this time the chair
man of the Senate Committee on Foreign Affairs
o
ceased to be a direct factor in the negotiation with
Great Britain.
Thus far, in pursuance of the policy dimly out
lined in the executive session debate on the John
son-Clarendon convention, the two questions of a
settlement of claims and Canadian independence
had been kept closely associated. They were now
to be separated. Yet the change was gradual ; for
Mr. Sumner's policy had a strong hold on the minds
of both President and Secretary. Even as late as
September, 1870, only five months before the
Treaty of Washington was negotiated, Secretary
Fish and Sir Edward Thornton had another con
versation on the subject of Canadian independence.
It originated in one of the endless squabbles over
the Fisheries. The Secretary intimated his belief
that the solution of that question would be found in
a separation of the Dominion from the Mother
Country. Thereupon Mr. Thornton repeated what
he had, he declared, often said before, — that Great
Britain was willing, and even anxious, to have the
112 Before and After the Treaty of Washington:
Colonies become independent ; but could do noth
ing to force independence on them. He then added
— " It is impossible to connect the question of Can
adian independence with the Alabama claims ; not
even to the extent of providing for the reference of
the question of independence to a popular vote of
the people of the Dominion. Independence," he
added, " means annexation. They are one and the
same thing." This conversation, it will be ob
served, took place on the very day the invest
ment of Paris by the victorious German army was
pronounced complete. In the existing European
situation everything was possible, anything might
be anticipated.
Though his resignation had been requested, Mr.
Motley still remained in London. His early removal
was contemplated byTthe President, and the ques
tion of who should be sent out to replace him was
under consideration. The place was offered to O. P.
Morton, then a Senator from Indiana. Wholly the
President's, the selection was the reverse of happy.
Governor Morton was inclined to accept ; but he
desired first to know whether he would, as Min
ister, have the Alabama claims settlement entrusted
to him. The President then talked the matter over
with Secretary Fish, and what he said showed
clearly the hold which Sumner's views had on him.
He proposed that the new Minister should attempt
a negotiation based on the following concessions by
Great Britain : (i) the payment of actual losses in
curred through the depredations of British Con
federate commerce-destroyers ; (2) a satisfactory
revision of the principles of international law as
between the two governments; and (3) the sub-
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 113
mission to the voters of the Dominion of the ques
tion of independence. In commenting immediately
afterwards on this conversation, Mr. Fish wrote—
" The President evidently expects these Provinces
to be annexed to the United States during his ad
ministration. I hope that it may be so. That such
is their eventual destiny, I do not doubt ; but
whether so soon as the President expects may be a
question." Owing to the result of an election in
Indiana held shortly after this time, it was deemed
inexpedient for Gov. Morton to vacate his seat in
the Senate. He consequently declined further to
consider a diplomatic appointment. Though in no
way germane to the subject of this paper, it is inter
esting to know that it was to fill the vacancy thus
existing that Gen. Butler shortly after brought for
ward the name of Wendell Phillips. The President,
Mr. Fish noted, " very evidently will not consider
him within the range of possibilities of appointment."
The pressure for some settlement now brought
to bear on the British government was day by
day becoming greater. Late in November the
Russian minister took occasion to suggest to Sec
retary Fish that the present time, — that of the
Franco-Prussian war, — was most opportune to press
on Great Britain an immediate settlement of the
Alabama claims. Two weeks later the message of
the President was sent to Congress, with the sig
nificant paragraph already quoted. In his next
talk with the British minister, Secretary Fish al
luded to the suggestion made to him by the Rus
sian minister, and Sir Edward Thornton, in return,
frankly asked him what the United States wanted.
And now at last the negotiation took a new and
114 Before and After the Treaty of Washington:
final turn. The Secretary, dropping Canada from
the discussion, asked merely an expression of regret
on the part of Great Britain, an acceptable declaration
of principles of international law, and payment of
claims. This conversation took place on the 2Oth of
November; nineteen days later, on the 9th of Decem
ber, at a cabinet meeting held that day, Secretary
Fish read in confidence a private letter to him from
Sir John Rose "intimating that the British cabinet is
disposed to enter on negotiations." It would thus ap
pear that the obstacle in the way of a renewed nego
tiation had been the purpose of the United States to
combine in some way a settlement of money claims
private and national, with a movement looking to
the withdrawal of the British flag, in whole or part,
from the North American continent. The moment
this purpose was withdrawn, the British cabinet
lost no time in signifying its readiness to negotiate.
None the less, the whole scheme of Mr. Sumner,
underlying his famous speech of May 17, 1869, and
the appointment of Mr. Motley to the English mis
sion, was thereby and thenceforth definitely aban
doned. In his memorandum, therefore, he de
manded nothing new; he merely, stating the case
in its widest form, insisted upon adherence to a
familiar policy long before formulated.
VI
The narrative now returns to the point when Mr.
Sumner's memorandum of January i;th reached
Mr. Fish. Whatever may have been the Secre
tary's sensations when he finished the perusal of
that remarkable paper, one thing must at once have
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 115
been apparent to him ; by it the situation was sim
plified. The natural, — indeed the only inference
to be drawn from the memorandum, — was that the
chairman of the Senate Committee on Foreign Af
fairs intended to put an immediate stop to the pro
posed negotiation, if in his power so to do. The
considerations influencing him were obvious. The
course of procedure now suggested was wholly at
variance with the policy outlined by him. In June,
1869, he had written to Mr. Motley: — "I should
make no claim or demand for the present" ; and to
Caleb Cushirg a month later — " Our case, in length
and breadth, with all details, should be stated to
England without any demand of any kind." And
now, in January, 1871, he did not regard the con
ditions of a successful and satisfactory settlement
with Great Britain, on the basis he had in view, as
being any more propitious than in June, 1869.
Eighteen months only had elapsed. The fruit was
not yet ripe ; — then why shake the tree ? That
" international debate, the greatest of our history,
and before it is finished, in all probability the great
est of all history," seemed drawing to a lame and
impotent, because premature, conclusion. His
memorandum was, therefore, an attempt at a check
mate. By formulating demands which he knew
would not be entertained, he hoped to bring the
proposed negotiation to an abrupt close. The
country would then await some more convenient
occasion, when, Great Britain being entirely willing,
a mild compulsion in favor of independence could
be brought to bear upon her American dependen
cies. On the other hand, the issue presented in
this memorandum was clear and not to be evaded :
Ii6 Before and After the Treaty of Washington:
—Was the Executive to shape the foreign policy of
the United States ; or was it to receive its inspiration
from the room of the Senate Committee on Foreign
Relations ? Either that committee must be brought
into line with the State Department, or the Secre
tary of State should accept his position as a chair
man's clerk.
A delicate question between the executive and
legislative departments of the government, --a
question as old as the Constitution, was thus in
volved. What Constituted an attempt at improper
interference by one department with the functions
and organization of the other? It is obvious that,
in a representative government under the party sys
tem, where both the legislative and the executive
departments are controlled by the same party or
ganization, the legislative committees should be so
organized as to act in accord with the responsible
executive. It is a purely practical question. The
executive cannot, of course, directly interfere in the
organization of the legislative body ; but it has a
perfect right to demand of its friends and sup
porters in the legislative bodies that those hav
ing charge through committees of the business
of those bodies should be in virtual harmony with
the administration. Certainly, they should not be
in avowed hostility to it. Indeed, under any proper
construction of functions, those finding themselves
in virtual opposition should in such cases decline
committee appointments necessarily placing them
in a position where they feel under compulsion to
thwart and hamper the measures of the party of
which they nominally are members. Such should,
in parliamentary parlance, take their places below
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 117
the gangway. In the winter of 1870-1 Mr. Sum-
ner was in that position. Chairman of the Senate
Committee on Foreign Relations, he was notorious
ly in proclaimed opposition on cardinal features of
foreign policy. Such being the case, in view of the
executive functions of the Senate, it is at least an
open question whether he should not have volun
tarily declined longer to serve as chairman of the
committee having foreign matters in its charge.
His serving was clearly an obstruction to the Ad
ministration ; while it would be perfectly possible
for him to exert his influence in the Senate and
committee-room without being the official head,
entrusted as such with the care of measures on
the defeat of which he was intent. The practice,
under our government, is the other way. Sen
atorial courtesy and seniority, it is well known,
prevail ; and Secretaries must govern themselves
accordingly. Nevertheless, in the case of Mr.
Sumner and his chairmanship in 1870-1 this prac
tice was carried to its extreme limit. Having been
active in opposition to one measure of foreign policy
by which the President set great store, he declared
himself in advance opposed to another measure of
yet greater moment. A wholly impossible prelimi
nary condition to the proposed measure must, he
declared, be insisted upon, — or, to use his own
language, " cannot be abandoned."
In January, 1871, the Forty-first Congress was
fast drawing to its close. Chosen at the election
which made Grant President for the first time, that
Congress was overwhelmingly Republican ; so
much so that, of seventy-two Senators admitted to
seats, sixty-one were supporters of the Administra-
1 1 8 Before and After the Treaty of Washington :
tion. And yet, in a body thus made up, — a body in
which the opposition numbered but eleven mem
bers, — scarcely one in six, — a treaty in behalf of
the approval of which the President had exerted all
his influence, personal and official, had failed to se
cure even a majority vote. The chairman of the
Committee on Foreign Relations, regardless of the
private personal solicitation of the chief Executive
wholly unprecedented in character, had been not
only unrelenting but successful in his opposition.
President Grant was essentially a soldier; as such he
looked at all things from the military point of view.
He consequently regarded this action on the part
of a Senator at the head of the Committee on For
eign Relations as, during the War, he would have
regarded the action of a Department Commander
who refused to co-operate in the plan of general
campaign laid down from head-quarters, and ex
erted himself to cause an operation to fail. Such
a subordinate should be summarily relieved. He
seems actually to have chafed under his inability
to take this course with the chairman of a Senate
committee; and so he relieved his feelings at the
expense of the friend of the chairman, the min
ister to England, who was within his power. Him
he incontinently dismissed ; exactly as, under any
similar circumstances, he would have dealt with
some general in subordinate command.
But Grant, General as well as President, was not
satisfied with this. His instinct for discipline, as well
as his feelings, had been outraged, and he was in
tent on the real offender, — the Senator from Mas
sachusetts. He had also a quick eye for stategic
situations, and he seems at once to have grasped
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 1 19
the opportunity now offered him : and it hence fol
lowed that, when Secretary Fish, with Mr. Sum-
ner's memorandum in his hand, went to Grant for
instructions, the President's views as to the inde
pendence and annexation of Canada at once under
went a change. As he welcomed an issue with his
much-disliked antagonist upon which he felt assured
of victory, hemispheric flag-withdrawals ceased to
interest him. A great possible obstruction in the
path of the proposed negotiation was thus sudden
ly removed. The General-President promptly in
structed the Secretary to go to Sir John Rose, and
advise him that the Administration was prepared
to accept the proposal for a commission to settle all
questions between the countries. That was, how
ever, a preliminary move only. By it the Adminis
tration was committed to action of great import.
A crucial case was presented ; one on which no
unnecessary risk would be incurred. The next, and
really vital step remained to be taken.
When the first Congress of Grant's earlier ad
ministration met in its second session at the usual
date in December, 1870, an attempt was made fore
shadowing what occurred four months later. A
partial reorganization of the Senate Committee on
Foreign Affairs was discussed, with a view to the
introduction into that committee of some element
less under its chairman's influence, and more docile
to the Executive. A place on the committee was
to be found for Roscoe Conkling, of New York. If
possible, Mr. Conkling was to be substituted for
Mr. Summer ; but if Mr. Sumner was found too
firmly fixed, Mr. Schurz was to be replaced as a
member of the committee ; or, as a final resort,
I2O Before and After the Treaty of Washington:
Mr. Patterson, of New Hampshire, if Mr. Schurz
also proved immovable. The las*t change was final
ly decided upon ; but, when the committee as thus
altered was reported in caucus, Sumner objected.
Senatorial courtesy then prevailing, the scheme was
for the time being abandoned. Charles Sumner was,
however, yet to learn that, in civil as in military life,
Ulysses S. Grant was a very persistent man.
Two weeks later Mr. Sumner did what he had
hitherto refrained from doing. Up to this time he
had expressed himself with characteristic freedom,
denouncing the President in conversation and in
letter,* but he had not opposed him in debate. He
now openly broke ground against him in a carefully
prepared speech on the Dominican question. In
the position he took he was probably right. He
would certainly be deemed so in the light of the
views then generally taken of the world-mission of
the United States; but that was during the coun
try's earlier period, and before the universality of
its mission was so plainly disclosed as it now is.
Whether correct, however, in his position or not,
his manner and language were characteristic, and
unfortunate. The question on both sides had be
come personal ; ' the feeling uncontrollable : and,
throughout his career, — early and late, — Mr. Sum
ner did not appreciate the significance of words.
He failed to appreciate them in the speech now
made, entitled by him " Naboth's Vineyard," where
in he accused the President of seeking surrepti
tiously to commit the country to a " dance of blood."
On the Qth of January, less than three weeks after
this outbreak, the papers relating to the recall of
*Pierce's Sumner, vol. iv, pp. 448, 454.
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 121
Mr. Motley were, by order of the President, sent
to the Senate. This was on a Monday ; and it was
on the following Sunday evening that Mr. Fish
called on Mr. Sumner by arrangement, with the Sir
John Rose memorandum. The climax was then at
hand. Among the papers relating to the removal
of Mr. Motley was one in which the Secretary had
referred to some unnamed party as being " bitterly,
personally and vindictively hostile" to the Presi
dent ; while in another passage he had spoken of
the President as a man than whom none ''would
look with more scorn and contempt upon one who
uses the words and the assurances of friendship to
cover a secret and determined purpose of hostility."
The allusion was unmistakably to Sumner. It
was so accepted by him. The Motley papers were
laid before the Senate on the very Monday upon
which Sir John Rose reached Washington. The
succeeding Tuesday, the eighth day after the trans
mission of those papers, the memorandum of Mr.
Sumner of January I7th reached the Secretary.
The break between the two officials was complete ;
they were no longer on speaking terms.
January was now more than half over, and, in six
weeks' time, the Forty-first Congress was to pass
out of existence. When, on the 4th of March, the
new Congress came into being, the committees of
the Senate would have to be reappointed, and, of
necessity, largely remodelled, nineteen newly elected
riiembers of the body replacing a similar number
whose terms had expired. Mr. Sumner's deposition
from the chairmanship he would then have filled
through five successive Congresses had meanwhile
become a fixed idea in the presidential mind ; and
122 Before and After the Treaty of Washington ;
Secretary Fish shaped his course accordingly. On
the 24th of January he again met Sir John Rose.
A week had intervened since the receipt of Mr.
Sumner's memorandum, and during that week the
Secretary had been holding consultations with Mr.
Sumner's committee colleagues ; of course, abso
lutely ignoring that gentleman. While so doing he
had carefully informed himself as to the attitude of
the Democratic minority in the Senate, now in
creased to seventeen in a body numbering in all
seventy-four. Mr. Bayard and Mr. Thurman were
the recognized leaders of the opposition ; and, from
both, he received assurances of support. Upon the
other side of the chamber, the Administration Sen
ators could, of course, be counted upon ; and through
their leaders, Messrs. Conkling and Edmunds, it
was well known that they were ripe for revolt
against the Sumner committee-regime.
Though personally highly respected, Mr. Sumner
was not a favorite among his colleagues. In many
respects a man of engaging personality ; kind, sym
pathetic and considerate, essentially refined and
easy of approach, Mr. Sumner could not brook any
sustained opposition. Recognizing superiority in no
one, he was restive in presence of any assertion of
equality. The savor of incense was sweet in his
nostrils ; and, while he did not exact deference, habit
ual deference was essential to his good-will. Among
his colleagues, especially those not politically op
posed but more or less lacking in sympathy, his
unconsciously overbearing habit, implacable tem
per and intemperate expression necessarily made
him enemies. The terms seem strong, and yet
they are not so strong as those used of him at the
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 123
time by men of his own age, and friends of years'
standing. One instance will suffice. " Sumner,"
wrote R. H. Dana not long before, " has been act
ing like a madman * * * in the positions he
took, the arguments he advanced, and the language
he used to the twenty out of twenty-five Republi
can Senators who differed from him. If I could
hear that he was out of his head from opium or
even New England rum, not indicating a habit, I
should be relieved. Mason, Davis and Slidell were
never so insolent and overbearing as he was, and
his arguments, his answers of questions, were boy
ish or crazy, I don't know which." Again in June,
1 86 1, the same excellent authority describes, in the
familiarity of private correspondence, the Senator as
coming from Washington " full of denunciation of
Mr. Seward. * He gave me some anxi
ety, as I listened to him, lest he was in a heated
state of brain. He cannot talk five minutes with
out bringing in Mr. Seward, and always in bitter
terms of denunciation. * * * His mission is to
expose and denounce Mr. Seward, and into that
mission he puts all his usual intellectual and moral
energy." Two years later Mr. Dana was in Wash
ington. In the interim he, an old personal as well
as political friend, had ventured to question the Sen
ator's policy. He now, as was his wont, at once
called on Mr. Sumner, leaving his card. The call
was not returned, nor did Mr. Dana hear anything
from Mr. Sumner during the succeeding twenty days
while in Washington, or see him, except once when,
by chance, they encountered each other at a friend's
house. All this was characteristic of the man. With
him, difference of opinion savored strongly of moral
124 Before and After the Treaty of Washington:
delinquency. To any question in which he was deep
ly concerned there was but one side.* As it was his
mission to denounce Seward in 1861, ten years later
it was his mission to denounce Grant; and he ful
filled it. As he " gave the cold shoulder " to Dana
in 1863, so he gave it to Fish in iS/i.f Conse
quently, in 1871, more than half the body of which
he was in consecutive service the senior member
were watching for a chance to humiliate him.
So, at his next meeting with Sir John Rose on
the 24th of January, — a meeting which took place
at the Secretary's house, and not at the State De
partment, — Mr. Fish began by quietly, but in con
fidence, handing Sir John the Sumner hemispheric
flag-withdrawal memorandum. Sir John read it;
and, having done so, returned it, without comment.
Mr. Fish then informed him that, after full consid
eration, the government had determined to enter
on the proposed negotiation ; and, should Great
Britain decide to send out special envoys to treat
on the basis agreed upon, the Administration would
spare no effort " to secure a favorable result, even
if it involved a conflict with the chairman of the
Committee on Foreign Relations in the Sen
ate." t
The die was cast. So far as the chairman of the
Senate Committee on Foreign Relations was con
cerned, the man of Donelson, of Vicksburg and of
Appomattox now had his eye coldly fixed upon him.
As to the settlement with Great Britain, it was to be
* Eulogy of Geo. William Curtis, Boston Memorial of Charles
Sumner \ p. 148.
f Pierce, vol. iv, p. 468 ; Adams, A'. H. Dana, vol. ii, p. 265.
J Moore, International Arbitrations, i, 520.
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 125
effected on business principles, and according to
precedent; "national" claims and hemispheric flag-
withdrawals were at this point summarily dismissed
from consideration.
The purport of the last interview between Mr.
Fish and Sir John Rose was immediately cabled by
the latter to London ; and, during the week that
ensued, the submarine wires were busy. The
Gladstone ministry, thoroughly educated by fast-
passing continental events, — France prostrate and
Germany defiant, — was now, heart and soul, intent on
extricating Great Britain from the position in which
it had, ten years before, put itself under a previous
administration of which Mr. Gladstone had been a
prominent, as well as an active and an influential,
member. Before the seven days had expired an
agreement was reached ; and, on the first of Feb
ruary, Sir Edward Thornton notified Secretary Fish
of the readiness of his government to send a special
mission to Washington empowered to treat on all
questions at issue between the two countries. The
papers were duly submitted to Congress, and, on the
9th of February, President Grant sent to the Senate
the names of five persons, designated as commission
ers to represent the United States in the proposed
negotiation. The nominations were promptly con
firmed. The question was now a practical one :—
Would Great Britain humble its pride so far as to
avail itself of the chance of extrication thus opened ?
—and, if it did humble its pride to that extent, could
the administration of President Grant so shape the
negotiation as to get the United States out of the
position in which Mr. Sumner had partially sue-
ceeded in putting it ? His more than possible op-
1 26 Before and After the Treaty of Washington :
position to any settlement at that time had to be
reckoned with ; if necessary, overborne.
For present purposes, it is needless to enter into
the details of the negotiation which ensued. If
not familiar history, I certainly have no new light
to throw on it. Under the skilful business guidance
of Mr. Fish, the settlement moved quietly and rap
idly to its foreordained conclusion. It is, however,
still curious to study, between the lines of the record,
the extent to which the Sumner memorandum influ
enced results, and how it in the end only just failed to
accomplish its author's purpose. It rested among Mr.
Fish's private papers, a bit of diplomatic dynamite
the existence of which was known to few, and men
tioned by no one. Not a single allusion is to be
found to it in the debates, the controversies or the
correspondence of the time. Yet there can be little
doubt that its presence contributed sensibly to that
strong presentation of national injuries, indirect
claims, and consequential damages which, in the
following autumn, startled Great Britain from its
propriety, and brought the treaty to the verge of
rejection. Had it led to that result, the possible
consequences might now, did space permit, be in
teresting to consider ; but such a result, whether an
advantage or otherwise to the world-at-large, would
have been a singular tribute to the influence of
Charles Sumner. In all human probability, also, a
calamity to Great Britain.
But to return to the narrative. Gen. Grant was
now handling a campaign. He did it in character
istic fashion. His opponent and his objective were
to him clear, and he shaped his plan of operations
accordingly. So rapidly did events move, so ready
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 127
ripe for action were all concerned, that the Joint
High Commission, as it was called, organized in
Washington on the 27th of February, exactly seven
weeks from the arrival there of Sir John Rose.
On the 8th of the following May the treaty was
signed ; and, on the loth, the President sent it to
the Senate. It was at once referred to the Com
mittee on Foreign Relations. Mr. Sumner was,
however, no longer chairman of that committee. On
the 8th of March, — two months before, — the nego
tiators were struggling with the vexed question of in
direct claims, Mr. Sumner's special senatorial thun
der; and, on the day following, at a Senate Republi
can caucus then held, he was deposed. As the story
has been told in all possible detail, it is needless here
to describe what then occurred. The step taken was
one almost without precedent, and there is every
reason to conclude that it had been decided upon
in the private councils of the White House quite ir
respective of the fate of any possible treaty which
might result from the negotiations then in progress.
However that may be, its complete justification can
be found in facts now known in connection with
that negotiation. Upon certain points there is no
longer room for controversy. As already pointed
out, in the conduct of the foreign policy of the coun
try, the chairman of the Senate Committee on For
eign Relations was, and is, of necessity a part of
the Administration. In March, 1870, a settlement
with Great Britain had become a cardinal feature,
—it might be said the cardinal feature, in the for
eign policy of the Administration, as represented by
its official organ, the State Department. With the
head of that Department the chairman of the Sen-
128 Before and After the Treaty of Washington:
ate Committee on Foreign Affairs was no longer
upon speaking terms ; while, in private, his denun
ciation of him and of the President was loud and
limitless. That chairman had, moreover, been
consulted as to the negotiation before it was in
itiated, and, in reply, had signified his opinion
that " the withdrawal of the British flag from this
hemisphere, including provinces and islands, cannot
be abandoned as a condition, or preliminary of set
tlement." With the Senate fate of the Johnson-
Clarendon convention fresh in memory, this mem
orandum of the chairman of the committee Mr.
Fish had privately communicated to the confiden
tial agent of the British government. So doing
was on his part right and proper. After its expe
rience over the Johnson-Clarendon convention, that
government of right ought to be, — indeed, had to
be, — advised of this danger before being invited to
enter upon a negotiation which might result in
another mortifying rebuff. In making this unoffi
cial communication the Secretary had intimated to
the agent that, should Great Britain still decide to
proceed with the negotiations, the Administration
would spare no effort to secure a favorable result
" even if it involved a conflict" with Mr. Sumner.
To any one who knew the President and his
methods, mental and military, this admitted of no
misinterpretation. Unquestionably, the contents of
Mr. Sumner's memorandum were well known to
every one of the British plenipotentiaries, as also
was the committal of the Administration in connec
tion therewith. Under these circumstances the
course now pursued was more than justifiable ; it
was necessary, as well as right. For the Adminis-
American Civil War and War in tJie Transvaal. 129
tration, in face of the notice thus given, to have per
mitted the continuance of Mr. Sumner in his chair
manship, if to prevent was in its power, would have
been worse than childish ; it would have distinctly
savored of bad faith: and neither Gen. Grant nor Mr.
Fish were ever chargeable with bad faith, any more
than the record of the former was indicative of a prone-
ness to indecisive or childish courses of procedure.
On the Qth of March, therefore, in accordance
with the understood wishes of the Executive, Mr.
Sumner was deposed by his senatorial colleagues
from the chairmanship of the Senate Committee on
Foreign Relations. Still, when, on the 24th of
May the treaty was reported back to the Senate by
the committee as now organized, with a favorable
recommendation, the question of interest was as to
the course Mr. Sumner would pursue. Would he
acquiesce ? It was well understood that on all
matters of foreign policy the Senate, if only from
long habit, gave a more than attentive ear to his
utterances. Almost daily, after the treaty was trans
mitted to the Senate and until it was reported back
from committee, intimations from this person and
from that, — callers on Mr. Sumner or guests at his
table, — reached the Department of State, indicating
what the deposed chairman proposed to do, or not
to do. One day Judge Hoar, now serving as one of
the Joint High Commissioners, would announce that
Mr. Sumner had declared himself the evening be
fore in favor of the treaty, and was preparing a
speech accordingly ; on the evening of the same
day another gentleman came directly to Mr. Fish
from Mr. Sumner's table to say that his host
had just been criticising the treaty, and proposed
130 Before and After the Treaty of Washington:
to urge amendments to it. The British commis
sioners were especially solicitous. They even went
so far as to ignore their instructions to leave Wash
ington as soon as possible after the treaty was
signed. The Administration wished them to re
main there, as one of the Englishmen wrote, on the
ground that they might be able to influence "par
ticular Senators, such as the Democrats and (still
more) Sumner, over whom [the Administration has]
no party control." Sir Stafford Northcote then
goes on to say of Mr. Sumner — " We have paid
him a great deal of attention since he has been de
posed, and I think he is much pleased at being still
recognized as a power." Sir Stafford might well
say that they had paid him a great deal of atten
tion. Mr. Sumner's egotism and love of flattery
were tolerably well understood ; and the English
men, realizing that he was "very anxious to stand
well with England," humored him to the top of his
bent. Lord de Grey, for instance, presently to be
made Marquis of Ripon, the head of the British side
of the commission, went out of his way to inform the
deposed chairman that, without his speech on the
Johnson-Clarendon convention, " the treaty could
not have been made, and that he [Lord de Grey]
worked by it as a chart." Nor were the American
commissioners less solicitous ; though they went
about it in a more quiet way. For, hardly was the
ink of the signatures to the treaty dry before Judge
Hoar called at Mr. Sumner's door with a copy,
which he commended to the Senator's favorable
consideration " as meeting on all substantial points
the objections he had so well urged against the
Johnson-Clarendon convention."
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 131
That Mr. Sumner, had he, on consideration, con
cluded that it was his duty to oppose the confirma
tion of the treaty, could, placed as he now was, have
secured its rejection, is not probable. As chairman
of the Committee on Foreign Relations it would al
most unquestionably have been in his power so to
do ; not directly, perhaps, but through the adoption of
plausible amendments. This course Mr. Fish ap
prehended. On the 1 8th of May, Mr. Trumbull,
then Senator from Illinois, and deservedly influen
tial, called at the Department to inquire whether an
amendment would jeopardize the treaty. In reply
he was assured that any amendment, however
trivial, would, in all probability, destroy the treaty,
as it would enable Great Britain either to withdraw
entirely, or, in any event, to propose counter
amendments. In point of fact, Mr. Sumner, while
advocating approval, did offer amendments ; but,
no longer chairman of the committee, he was shorn
of his strength. Up to the time of voting, he was
enigmatical. He would intimate a sense of great
responsibility, inasmuch as he realized the extent to
which the country was looking to him for guidance ;
and he would then suggest doubts. His mind was
not clear, &c., &c. On the direct issue of approval
the solid phalanx of Administration Senators would
unquestionably have been arrayed against him ;
and, on the Democratic side of the chamber, he
was far from popular. None the less it would have
been in his power, playing on the strong Irish ele
ment and the anti-English feeling then very rife, to
have made much trouble. The treaty bears dis
tinct marks of having been framed with all this in
view. In its provisions, not only did he find the
132 Before and After the Treaty of Washington:
ground in great degree cut away from under him,
but he could not help realizing that, in view of his
speech on the Johnson-Clarendon convention, he
stood to a certain extent committed. It was not open
for him to take the hemispheric flag-withdrawal at
titude. So doing was impossible. He had not taken
it before ; and, though his reasons for not taking it
were obvious, to take it now would, under the cir
cumstances, inevitably expose him to ridicule. He
was in thus far fairly and plainly circumvented.
But, more and most of all Charles Sumner was,
be it ever said, no demagogue. Somewhat of a doc
trinaire and more of an agitator, he was still in his
way an enlightened statesman, with aspirations for
America and mankind not less generous than per-
fervid. His egoism was apparent ; nor has his
rhetoric stood the test of time. A hearty hater,
and unsparing of denunciation, he hated and de
nounced on public grounds only ; but his standards
were invariably high, and he was ever actuated by
a strong sense of obligation. His course now was
creditable. In his belief an unsurpassed opportu
nity had been lost. A rejection of the proposed ad
justment, manifestly fair so far as it went, could,
however, result only in keeping alive a source of
acute irritation between two great nations. That
involved a heavy responsibility ; a responsibility
not in Mr. Sumner's nature to assume. Accord
ingly, he accepted the inevitable ; and he accepted
it not ungracefully. Gen. Grant numbered him,
with Buckner, Pemberton, Johnston, Bragg and Lee
among his vanquished opponents. As to Mr. Fish,
the two were never afterwards reconciled ; but the
Secretary now had his way.
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 133
Into the subsequent difficulties encountered by
Secretary Fish in his work of saving Great Britain
in spite of Great Britain's self, it is needless to en
ter. Suffice it to say they can all be traced back to
the positions assumed by Mr. Sumner in April,
1869. As already pointed out, it was obviously
from an over-desire to forestall Mr. Sumner that
Secretary Fish's assistant, Mr. Bancroft Davis, a
little later jeopardized the whole treaty by the ex
treme grounds taken on the subject of national
injuries, indirect claims and consequential dam
ages, and the somewhat intemperate way in which
the same were urged. With Mr. Sumner's historic
indictment of the Johnson-Clarendon convention
fresh in memory, the full record of grievance had to
be set forth, or the American people might resent a
tacit abandonment of what they had been taught to
regard as their just demands. With an eye to this
possibility, — Sumner always in mind, — Mr. Fish had
at an early stage of the negotiations significantly inti
mated to his colleagues that "he supposed it was
pretty well agreed that there were some claims which
would not be allowed by the arbitrators, but he
thought it best to have them passed upon." So, in
avoiding the senatorial Sylla, Mr. Bancroft Davis
subsequently brought the ark of settlement squarely
up against the British Charybdis. Six years later,
when both Mr. Sumner and Mr. Motley were dead,t
General Grant made contemptuous reference to the
" indirect damage humbug," as he then phrased it ;
and, as set forth in the American " case " presented at
* Davis, Mr. Fish and the Treaty of Washington, p. 77.
f In an interview at Edinburgh, published in the New York Her-
ald of September 25, 1877.
34 Before and After the Treaty of Washingt
on
Geneva, it was a " humbug," — a by no means cred
itable "humbug." As such it had by some means
to be got rid of; and at Geneva it was, with general
acceptance, so got rid of. Be it always, however,
remembered, the vulgarized bill then presented was
not the sublimated balance-sheet Charles Sumner
had in mind. His was no debit-and-credit account,
reduced to dollars and cents, and so entered in an
itemized judgment ; nor was this better understood
by any one than by President Grant. It is but fair
to assume that, in the rapid passage of events be
tween 1870 and 1877, tne facts now disclosed had
been by him forgotten.
In Wemyss Reid's Life of William E. Forster
is a chapter devoted to this subject. I think it may
not unfairly be said that Mr. Forster now saved the
treaty. In the first outburst of indignation over the
resurrection in the American "case" of Sumner's self-
evolved equities and incalculable claims, a special
meeting of the British cabinet was summoned, at
which a portion of the members were for withdrawing
forthwith from the arbitration. Though he himself,
unadvisedas to the real motive for so emphasizingthe
demand on account of national injuries, held the whole
thing to be a case of " sharp practice," yet Mr. Fors
ter counselled a moderate and prudent course, — as
he put it, " a cool head and a cool temper needed " ;
adding, " I never felt any matter so serious." He
then drew up a special memorandum for the use of
his colleagues, looking to such action as would be
most likely to leave open the way to an understand
ing. Upon this all the ministers, save four, were
against him. Mr. Forster next met Mr. Adams,
then passing through London on his way home
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 135
from the preliminary meeting of the tribunal of ar
bitration at Geneva, he being a member of it ; and
Mr. Adams fairly told him that, for Great Britain, it
was a case of now or never. If, Mr; Adams said,
Great Britain insisted on the absolute exclusion of
the indirect claims, America must withdraw ; and,
if it did, "the arbitration was at an end, and Amer
ica would never make another treaty."
During those anxious weeks the British cabinet
was the scene of more than one heated discussion,
and so severe was the tension that the very exist
ence of the Ministry was threatened. On the
afternoon of April 24th, Forster intimated to Gen
eral Schenck, the American Minister, that, unless
something was done, he and the Marquis of Ripon
" could not keep the treaty alive." Mr. Adams
was now once more in London on his way to Ge
neva, and Mr. Forster again saw him, receiving the
assurance that " Fish and the President had the
Senate well in hand " ; yet, this notwithstanding,
when an article supplemental to the treaty, obviat
ing the cause of trouble, was agreed on and sub
mitted to the Senate, that body so amended it before
ratification that the English government professed
itself unable to concur. It seemed as if the last
chance of a pacific settlement was about to vanish.
On the 1 5th of June the Court of Arbitration met
at Geneva, pursuant to adjournment. Everything
was in the air. At Geneva, however, the policy of
the State Department was understood ; and, en
trusted to experienced hands, it was, at the proper
time, skilfully forwarded. A way out of the last,
and most serious of all the dangers which imperilled
the settlement was thus devised, and the arbitration
1 36 Before and After the Treaty of Washington :
moved on thenceforth upon common-sense business
lines to a practical result.
Times change, and with them the estimate in
which nations hold issues. Recollecting the levity,
at times marked by more than a trace of sarcasm and
petulance, with which the British Foreign Secretary
had received our earliest reclamations because of
injuries inflicted on our mercantile marine by British-
built commerce-destroyers, I cannot refrain, before
closing, from a few words descriptive of the very
different mood in which the Ministry then in power
awaited tidings of the final results reached at Gen
eva. It was the I5th of June, 1872. The treaty
was in question. The Court of Arbitration met at
Geneva at noon ; in London, at the same hour, a
meeting of the cabinet was in session, — a meeting
almost unique in character. The members waited
anxiously for tidings. For two hours they attended
listlessly to routine Parliamentary work ; and then
took a recess. When, at 3 o'clock, the time for re
assembling came, no advices had been received.
Thereupon, a further adjournment was taken until
5:30. Still no telegram. All subjects of conversa
tion being now exhausted, the members sat about,
or faced each other in silence. It was a curious situa
tion for a ministry. Had England humiliated herself
by an expression of fruitless regret ? Those present
contemplated the situation in the true Parliamentary
spirit. " The opposition would snigger if they saw
us," remarked one ; and the speaker soon after sent
for a chess-board, and he and Mr. Forster took
chairs out on the terrace in front of the cabinet-
room, and there sat down to a game, using one_of
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 137
the chairs as a table. Three games were played ;
but still no tidings. So the company dispersed for
dinner. As the Tribunal adjourned over until Mon
day, no tidings came that night; the method of
procedure had, however, been arranged, and Mr.
Fish communicated with. His assent to what was
proposed came immediately ; and meanwhile Mr.
Forster was bestirring himself in London to "urge
help to Adams," and a " short, helpful telegram "
was forwarded. "After all/' wrote Mr. Forster
that night, " this treaty, which has as many lives as
a cat, will live." The next afternoon this staunch
friend of America and of peace scribbled, from his
seat in the ministerial benches, this note to his wife :
— " Hip, hip, hip, hooray ! the final settlement of
the indirect claims came during questions to-day,
and Gladstone announced it amid great cheers on
our side and the disgust of the Tories. This is a
good year now, whatever happens." It was the
1 9th of June, 1872, — one month over eleven years
since the issuance of the famous proclamation. A
heavy shadow was lifted from off the future of the
British Empire. That it was thus lifted must in all
historical truth be ascribed to Hamilton Fish.
In discussing the developments of history, it is
almost never worth while to waste time and inge
nuity in philosophizing over what might have been.
The course of past events was — as it was ! What
the course of subsequent events would, or might
have been, had things at some crucial juncture gone
otherwise than as they actually did go, no one can
more than guess. Historical consequences are not
less strange than remote. For instance, the lessons
138 Before and After the Treaty of Washington:
of our own War of Independence,^ closed six score
years ago, are to-day manifestly influencing the at
titude and action of Great Britain throughout her
system of dependencies. Should the system ever,
as now proposed, assume a true federated form,
that result, it may safely be asserted, will be largely
due to the experience gained a century and a
quarter ago on the North American continent, sup
plemented by that now being gained in South
Africa. In view of the enormous strides made by
science during the last third of a century it cannot
be assumed that, as respects warfare on land or on
sea, what was possible in 1863 would be possible
now. The entire globe was not then interlaced
with electric wires, and it may well be that another
Alabama is as much out of the range of future
probabilities as a ship flying the black flag, with
its skull and crossed bones, was outside of those of
1861. This, however, aside, it is instructive, as
well as interesting, to summarize the record which
has now been recalled, and to consider the position
in which Great Britain would to-day find itself but
for the settlement effected and principles established
by means of the Treaty of Washington.
So far as the international situation is concerned,
the analogy is perfect. Every rule of guidance
applicable in our Civil war of 1861-65 is a fortiori
applicable in the South African war of 1899-1902.
The contention of Great Britain from 1861 to 1865
was that every neutral nation is the final judge of
its own international obligations ; and that, in her
own case, no liability, moral or material, because of
a violation of those obligations was incurred, no
matter how scandalous the evasion might subse-
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 139
quently prove to have been, unless the legal advisers
of the government pronounced the ascertainable evi
dence of an intention to violate the law sufficient to
sustain a criminal indictment. In view of the " lu
crative" character of British ship-building, it was
farther maintained that any closer supervision of
that industry, and the exercise of " due diligence"
in restraint of the construction of commerce-de
stroyers, would impose on neutrals a "most bur
densome, and, indeed, most dangerous " liability.
Finally, under the official construction of British
municipal law, — a law pronounced by Her Majesty's
government adequate to any emergency, — " it was
unnecessary for a naval belligerent to have either a
port or a sea-shore." The South African republics,
for instance, " might unite together, and become a
great naval power," using the ports of the United
States as a base for their maritime operations.
" Money only was required for the purpose." Then
came the admission of Sir Edward Thornton that,
in case Great Britain were engaged in war, retalia
tions in kind for the Alabama and the Florida
would naturally be in order ; commerce-destroyers
would be fitted out on the Pacific coast as well as
the Atlantic, in spite of all the United States gov
ernment might, or could, do to prevent them ; and,
with them, the high seas would swarm. War must
follow; and then Canada was "a source of weak
ness." On land and on sea Great Britain was
equally vulnerable.
From such a slough of despond was Great Brit
ain extricated by the Treaty of Washington. That
much is plain ; all else is conjecture. But it is still
curious to consider what might well have now re-
Before and After the Treaty of Washington :
suited had the United States, between 1869 and
1871 definitely for its guidance adopted the policy
contemplated by Charles Sumner instead of that
devised by Hamilton Fish, and had then persist
ently adhered to it. In the hands and under the
direction of Mr. Sumner, the method he proposed
to pursue to the end he had in mind might have
proved both effective and, in the close, beneficent.
So long as all things are possible — Who can say ?
But Mr. Sumner died in 1874; and with him must
have died the policy he purposed to inaugurate.
Characteristically visionary, he was wrong in his
estimate of conditions. He in no wise foresaw that
backward swing of opinion's pendulum, from the
" wretched colonies " estimate of 1 870 to the Imperi-
umet Libertas conceptions of 1900. Mr. Fish, on the
other hand, less imaginative, was more nearly right.
He effected a practical settlement ; and, in so doing,
he accomplished a large result. For to-day it is ap
parent to all who carefully observe that, as the direct
outcome of the American Civil War, the world made
a long stride in advance. It is a great mistake to
speak of the Florida, the Alabama and the S/ienan-
doak as "privateers." They were not. No " pri
vateer," in the proper acceptation of the word, ever
sailed the ocean under the Confederate flag ; the
commerce-destroyers of that conflict, whether fitted
out on the Mersey and Clyde, or in home ports,
were, one and all, government ships-of-war, owned
and regularly commissioned by the belligerent
whose flag they flew, and commanded by its offi
cers. Their single mission was, none the less, to
burn, sink and destroy private property on the high
seas. They were engaged in no legitimate, — no
American Civil War and War in the Transvaal. 141
recognized operation of modern warfare ; unless it
be legitimate for an invading army wholly to devas
tate a hostile country, leaving behind it a smoking
desert only. On the ocean, the archaic principle still
obtains that the immunity of private property from
capture or destruction is confined to times of peace;
and, when war intervenes, mankind reverts to pi
racy, as the natural condition of maritime life. So
the commerce-destroyers were not pirates, — com
mon enemies of mankind ; but, as a result of the
Treaty of Washington, a new and broad principle
will inevitably, in some now not remote hereafter,
replace this relic of barbarism, — the principle that
private ^property, not contraband of war, is as
much entitled to immunity from destruction or
capture on water as on land. It is, accordingly,
not unsafe even now to predict that the Florida,
the Alabama and the Shenandoah will go down in
history, not as pirates, but as the last lineal sur
vivors of the black- flacked banditti of the olden
o o
time. If this so prove, it will then be apparent that
the Treaty of Washington supplemented the Proc
lamation of Emancipation, rounding out and com
pleting the work of our Civil War. The verdict of
history on that great conflict must then be that the
blood and treasure so freely poured out by us be
tween Sumter and Appomattox were not expended
in vain ; for, through it, and because of it, the last
vestiges of piracy vanished from the ocean, as slav
ery had before disappeared from the land.
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